10 March 2009

Women Political Leaders Recap Their Diverse Routes to Success

At forum, they encourage others to seek careers in public service

Former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin

By Ralph Dannheisser
Special Correspondent

Washington — Five women elected to federal and state office retraced their paths into politics for a National Archives audience March 5 and lamented that they remain relative exceptions in a male-dominated field.

The panel, which included two immigrants and two members of minority groups, recounted overcoming multiple stereotypes in the successful pursuit of political office.

Panelists included former Governor Madeleine Kunin of Vermont and former Lieutenant Governor Jennette Bradley of Ohio, as well as U.S. Representatives Grace Napolitano (Democrat, California), Marsha Blackburn (Republican, Tennessee) and Mazie Hirono (Democrat, Hawaii).

All agreed that they had followed less traditional paths into political office than their male counterparts, often starting with volunteer work at the local level.

Unlike men, several said, women usually must be urged to run by others. Mentoring by women like themselves, who have achieved elected office, can make a big difference.

Several suggested women who enter the political arena are motivated more by public service and less by considerations of power than are their male counterparts.

Kunin, elected to three terms as governor, recounted her entry into politics from a start as “a worried mother.” Concerned because her children had to cross railroad tracks when walking to school, she led a campaign to get flashing lights installed.

“I think a lot of women get started in politics because of a local or a family issue,” Kunin said. “I think you need to be angry about something, or worried. You have to have imagination to see something differently than it now is. And you have to be an optimist to believe that it’s worth it, that you’re not just banging your head against the wall in futility.”

Brought to the United States from Switzerland as a child, Kunin said growing up “with the American dream, being told by my single-parent mother that anything is possible here, gave me optimism about this country and about my possibilities.”

Grace Napolitano addresses the Democratic National Convention in Denver on August 25, 2008.

Hirono, born in Japan, also cites her mother as a key influence. “She changed my life by bringing me to this country and giving me the opportunity for an education. I turned to politics as a way to give back to my country,” she said.

Napolitano was a working mother of five when she was encouraged to run for her first office, a city council seat in Norwalk, California. Naysayers told her that, as a Mexican American, a woman and a Democrat, “You have three strikes against you,” she said. She won by 28 votes.

Bradley said she needed urging to run for office. Although active in community work, she initially declined entreaties to run for the city council in Columbus, Ohio. But then, she said, she realized that “it was going to be a watershed moment … an opportunity for the first African-American woman to be elected to the job.” A personal call from her congressman clinched her decision.

Blackburn recounted leading a successful battle against the imposition of a state income tax in her first elected office, as a Tennessee state senator. “Each and every one of you has the ability to exercise some form of leadership, and I would encourage you to,” she told her heavily female audience.

Eleanor Clift, panel moderator and a contributing editor at Newsweek magazine, told America.gov that the varied backgrounds of the panelists “show that there is no … [single] direct path to elected office, and for women it’s very different than for men.”

“I think the difficulty of achieving elective office for women still exists, or our numbers wouldn’t be as small as they are,” Clift said. “I think we’re slowly gaining, but much too slowly for women of a certain age.”

WOMEN STILL A MINORITY AMONG U.S. ELECTED OFFICIALS

Carol Hardy-Fanta, director of the University of Massachusetts’ Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, introduced the discussion by noting that women, who make up more than half the U.S. population, hold only 17 percent of congressional seats, and only seven of the 50 state governorships. Unlike many other democratic countries, she said, the United States has not yet elected a female head of government.

She termed the session “an inspiration for women in the audience who are perhaps thinking of a political career themselves.”

Faced with a continuing gender gap in politics, Hirono said, women must do more to help elect other women. “It takes money to run for office. … It’s damn hard to raise money, but you have to do it. Women have to learn to open up their checkbooks and write out the same kind of checks that they write to buy shoes,” she said.

Blackburn stressed that techniques developed at the community level can be adapted to politics. “Leadership is a transferable quality,” she said. “The leadership skills you develop in one arena you can use in another.”

And Kunin had another bit of advice for potential politicians in the audience: “Hold on to your idealism. People will tell you you’re naïve, or you’re too innocent. Those are good things.”