Aspiring Senator Hillary Clinton recently complained that although politics was tough for both men and women, "there are extra burdens that women face." Hillary may indeed face special obstacles, for obvious reasons. She is not from the state in which she is running, for example. But in the new millennium things are looking particularly good for women, though that wasn't always the case.
Women were involved in the political process long before they had the right to vote. Headed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was a lobbying organization that pushed for voting rights for women. Ratified on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment proclaimed that women had a right to enfranchisement in all elections.
However, women have been elected to state and federal branches of the government since the turn of the century. Jeanette Rankin from the state of Montana was the first woman elected to the House of Representatives, sworn in on March 4, 1917. The first female Senator, Maine resident Margaret Chase Smith, followed in 1948. Today, 56 women serve in the House of Representatives and 10 in the Senate.
These numbers are a long way from the early days of active female participation in politics. In 1952, Representative Coya Knutson lost in her bid for re-election because her opponent circulated a letter in which her husband urged her to abandon her work in Washington and return home to Minnesota. This year, five of the 12 candidates running that same district are women.
However, because at least 75 percent of incumbents are men, many women’s groups argue that this is one of the biggest barriers that women face. Yet, incumbency is not a barrier that females face alone. Incumbents are already known and therefore have an edge, especially in today's media culture. Gender does not play into that issue, as the Senate race between incumbent Diane Feinstein and challenger Rep. Tom Campbell shows. Senator Feinstein has raised twice as much money as Campbell, a well-known Californian politician in his own right.
In the beginning of the new millennium, greater numbers of women are running in national races than ever before. Elizabeth Dole ran a campaign for the presidency, and other women are sure to follow, with increasing approval. A recent CBS News poll found that 91 percent of 1558 adults surveyed, including 840 women said they would elect a woman president if she were their party’s nominee. Broken down by gender, 46 percent of the men surveyed responded in the affirmative, compared to 49 percent of the women.
In Washington State, women comprise more than 40 percent of the legislature. Arizona has an all-female state cabinet and in California and Maine, both U.S. Senators are female. That trend may spread to other states because political experts predict that the first election of the millennium may be the biggest ever for female candidates.
Campaign 2000 has about a dozen women running for the U.S. Senate and 140 candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives nation-wide. Whatever the outcome this fall, females are finding few of those special obstacles that Hillary Clinton sees everywhere. Woman will continue to prove that the key to a candidate's success is not gender but a competitive drive, a grasp of the issues, and a strong message.
—Laura Steadman
