CityHallNews.com

The XX Factor
New day for women in New York politics
By Carla Zanoni

In 1960, Geraldine Ferraro, then fresh out of law school, applied for a position at a firm.

She thought she had the job—that is, until they got to the question of her start date. Ferraro told the interviewer that she could not begin until after her wedding and honeymoon, several weeks away.

“They told me, ‘you’re Catholic, you could never fulfill a three-year commitment,’” Ferraro said. “That couldn’t happen today.”

That was just one of many misperceptions Ferraro faced in the years leading up to the beginning of her political career—and during it.

Fast forward 46 years.

Female politicos say that a woman’s looks, family ties, age and personality all still factor heavily in the public’s perception of whether she is ready for office.

Today, three women sit in top ranking political positions in New York: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D), rumored to be mulling a 2008 presidential bid, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan), both rumored to be 2009 mayoral candidates.

Despite the recent gains for women, Gotbaum and Assembly Member Sylvia Friedman (D-Manhattan), who lost her September primary in November, said that the road is still littered with obstacles for female candidates. Both said that government is made up of “white men.”

A National Trend?

The number of female lawmakers on the national level has more than tripled since 1987, with 16 women in the Senate and 71 in the House for the new Congress. On the state level, six women were elected or re-elected as governors this year, for a total of nine.

Approximately 1,500 women won election or re-election to state legislatures across the country, and women have been increasingly successful in gaining other state executive posts, such as lieutenant governor or attorney general. And, of course, there is California Rep. Nancy Pelosi. When she was elected the incoming speaker of the House, she was quoted as saying she had broken the “marble ceiling” for women.

Nonetheless, Ruth Messinger was less willing to call this a sweep for female politicians.

“These things differ in every decade, as it shapes, it changes for men as well,” Messinger said. “There are fewer people who can keep it together to make a career in politics for 30 or 40 years. The whole issue of how people go in and out of politics is going to keep changing.”

- Carla Zanoni

Moreover, said Brooklyn Council Member Letitia James (D), single female politicians become defined by the men with whom they work.

“Because I am a single woman, everything I did was credited to a man,” James said. “I created everything I have on my own. I was just humble enough to give credit to my bosses.”

James said that she made a conscious decision not have children, and said that she has not had any successful romantic relationships while in office.

During the election process, James said she was repeatedly asked if she could handle the stress of running, and whether she knew how to be tough and aggressive on the campaign trail. She said she knew how to be all of those things, while acknowledging that when female candidates flex their muscles, they are usually called the “b-word.”

“Hard work and grit has become part of my nature,” she said. “And if that translates into being aggressive, then yes, it’s aggression.”

James said that during the throes of the Atlantic Yards debate in Brooklyn, constituents recounted hearing the mayor call her “too strident and too shrill.”

Judith Hope, former New York State Democratic Chair and current president of the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee, said that women like Ferraro have paved the road for future generations. Personality and looks still factor heavily on public perceptions of female candidates.

“Eleanor Roosevelt once said that a woman needs the hide of a rhino to be successful in life,” Hope said. “But women need to overcome their fear of the process, because it’s not what matters. What matters is getting the position and getting the job done. All the other stuff pales in comparison.”

Hope also attributed many of the gains in the last election cycle to an increase in political machines backing female candidates.

“Political committees who make these decisions and nominate the people who run are seeking out women to run,” she said.

For many female politicians, the answer lies in raising a family before entering office later in life. Ferraro said that her experience raising a family was an added benefit as a politician. “Just like the guys, we bring our own experiences to the job,” she said.

But the issue of family and pregnancy definitely lingers. City Council Member Jessica Lappin (D-Manhattan) is now six-months pregnant. She is not the first woman to carry a child while in office. Current Council Member Diana Reyna (D-Brooklyn), former Council Members Eva Moskowitz (D-Manhattan) and (now Rep.) Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) all had children while working in City Hall. Moskowitz was the first to draft a maternity/paternity leave policy for the Council.

Lappin said that throughout her first campaign last year, she was routinely asked whether she had children or had plans to have a baby in the near future. She said she did not hear that asked of her male opponents.

“Being a working mother in New York is not a rarity,” she said, “and being a hard-working mom in New York is certainly not.”

Marion Sinek, a former New York State League of Women Voters president and United Nations observer for the nonpartisan female voters’ advocacy group, said that the difficulties in raising a family and having a career in politics proves daunting for most women interested in running for public office.

“The women I know who are involved politically waited until their children were at a certain age,” she said, “so that they could be away from home more.”

Council Member Sara Gonzalez (D-Brooklyn) is a parent. She said she embraced the overwhelmingly busy schedule that came out of balancing public life, going to school and being a mother.

“Many women feel they need to raise a family,” she said. “I wanted to do that, but I also needed to identify what Sara could give and what Sara could do.”

Manhattan Deputy Borough President Rosemond Pierre-Louis, who is unmarried, said time management is not a gender-specific challenge.

“Whether you are a man or a woman,” she said, “the balance between professional and personal is a lifelong quest.”

Most politicians—indeed, most busy professionals in New York—have difficult home lives held together by frozen dinners, nannies and scrawled notes left early in the morning and late at night. But even though many politicians relationships are deemed flawed, few male candidates get judged by their partner’s actions, as Jeanine Pirro (R) was during her campaign for attorney general this year.

“It’s not 1956, with all due respect, it’s 2006,” she said during the campaign, despite the futility in the face of media coverage. “I refuse to be defined by my husband.”

Janet Jakobson, director of The Center for Research on Women at Barnard College, said that although the school has always produced women who go onto politics and government, she often hears women who have trepidation about being publicly scrutinized during the election process.

Gotbaum said that both men and women’s pasts are looked at in the process, but that women are still held to a higher standard.

“The one difference for women is that we have to be more careful now,” she said, “because we are sort of new to the game, so we have to be purer than Caesar’s wife.”

Council Member Helen Sears (D-Queens), who chairs the Women’s Issues Committee, said that a woman’s perceived personality is a slippery slope.

“If she’s tough and ready, she’s thought of as abrasive,” Sears said. “If she stands her ground, she’s called a tough guy. If she’s intelligent, she’s a know-it-all.”

For Ferraro, it is just a matter of time before the sexes have balanced representation in public office. But for every person that became comfortable with that shift of power, there will always be some hold-outs. “I get very tired of repeating myself,” she said. “There are some people who never get the message and you just want to shake them and say, ‘Get real.”