Frontrunners and Backlashers

A young boy once approached Vermont's former governor Madeleine Kunin and asked, "Can boys be governor too?" It's the kind of anecdote that still draws smiles. But a host of women are determined this year to see that such irony becomes history. In U.S. politics, 1992 is, after all, the Year of the Woman.

Of course, 1984 was similarly labeled when Geraldine Ferraro became the Democratic vice presidential nominee. And there were rumblings of 1990 being a political year for women as well. But this year is different--and even the cynics admit that the times are ripe for important strides.

A record number of women are running for political office. Anti-incumbency fever and congressional redistricting have paved the way for change. And many female candidates are getting mileage out of the outrage generated among women by the grilling that Anita Hill received by the 14 men who sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings last fall.

This year, perhaps for the first time, being a woman is not seen as an automatic liability for a candidate. In fact, it is a year when being an "outsider" to the political processor being perceived as one--carries its advantages.

It is being said of several women candidates--for example, Lynn Yeakel, the Democratic nominee for senator from Pennsylvania--that they "came out of nowhere." Indeed, Yeakel began with no campaign experience, virtually no name recognition, and one percent support in the polls--and went on to win over four opponents (including Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor) in the Democratic primary. But "nowhere" for Yeakel is the executive directorship of Women's Way, an organization she helped to found that has raised up to $2 million a year to aid battered women.

Yeakel has perhaps most easily benefited from the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas fallout. Sen. Arlen Specter, chief griller of Hill in the hearings, will be Yeakel's Republican opponent in November. Her campaign ads used film clips of Specter at the hearings, followed by the question, "Did this make you as angry as it made me?" Carol Moseley Braun, who won a stunning upset victory in Illinois' Democratic primary over two men who ran arguably dirty campaigns (one of them incumbent Alan J. Dixon), also entered the race because of "the Anita Hill factor."

A few women candidates, including Yeakel, have been able to add their own substantial resources to their campaigns. But many have relied on large numbers of small contributions. Rep. Barbara Boxer, Democratic nominee for the Senate from California, funded her primary campaign with more than 50,000 contributors writing checks for $25 to $100 each--what she called "a thousand points of loot."

Such grassroots support has always been crucial for female candidates, who in the past have lacked large networks of donors to tap. But 1992 also shows an increased commitment and organization among women to promote women in government. The bipartisan Women's Campaign Fund has doubled its donor list since the Hill-Thomas debacle; and Emily's List (Emily stands for "Early Money Is Like Yeast"), a Democratic fund-raising organization for women candidates, expects to raise $5 million this year. New on the scene is a Republican counterpart, WISH (Women in the Senate and House), which raised $150,000 in its first two months.

THE RISE OF women's political power in 1992 has created a predictable backlash. Female candidates have had to fight stereotyping as "disorganized," "soft," lacking in foreign policy expertise. But in a year in which the Cold War is dead--and most voters are preoccupied with issues such as health care, jobs, and education--the stereotypes may actually be helping women.

Interestingly, the Republicans seem to have made the primary targets of their backlash a presidential-hopeful's spouse and a woman who doesn't even exist. The Dan Quayle attack on TV's single-mother Murphy Brown last spring set the stage for moralistic Republican preaching on "family values."

Hillary Clinton took the brunt of the attack come summer. Her landmark work on the legal rights of children was boiled down by Republican critics to "children suing their parents" and destroying families. Outspoken Republicans attempted to make the country believe that it is impossible for an assertive career woman (ranked among the nation's top 100 lawyers, according to Newsweek) to be the kind of mother who rarely misses her daughter's ballet recitals or softball games. Hillary Clinton became the latest fuel in the fiery battle over what it means to be a woman in the '90s.

In his Republican convention speech, Pat Buchanan included "radical feminists" (read Hillary) among those who are a danger to the nation (the surprise being only that he didn't use archconservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh's term "feminazis"). Republican TV evangelist Pat Robertson--whose Christian Coalition has raised more than $13 million in the effort to elect "pro-family Christians" to Congress--sent a letter to Iowa supporters, where voters are considering a state equal rights amendment, describing feminism as "a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."

This is all very calculated, of course--a fear campaign in which progressive women are the scapegoats for all that is wrong with the American family (and therefore, America). It was critical for the Republicans in this election year to create such a campaign: If voters think "family values," perhaps they won't think "economy."

A TV episode of The Simpsons showed a real-life film clip of George Bush proclaiming his hope that American families would be "more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons"--to which the smart-mouthed Bart Simpson replied, "We are like the Waltons--we're praying for the end of the Depression too."

Which is one of the few comments that actually gets to the heart of the matter. A true sound bite, if ever there was one.

The "family values" question of this election should be: How can a president who trumpets "family values" pursue policies that gut jobs, destroy low-income housing, ignore the health-care crisis, and veto the kind of family leave and day care solutions that would truly support the nation's families?

It would be a mistake to believe that all of this year's women candidates embrace a monolithic, progressive stance. Some are conservative Republicans--which just goes to show you that women can be anything they want to be. But many have won victories because of their stated commitment to these domestic concerns. They are showing that "women's issues" go far beyond the election-year fixation on abortion. And they are exhibiting unmistakable competence in the public arena.

Hopes are running high in some quarters about doubling the number of women in Congress (currently only two out of 100 U.S. senators are women, and 29 women serve in the 435-member House of Representatives). But whatever happens on November 3, 1992 has already been, in a very pivotal way, the Year of the Woman.

Joyce Hollday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.