When will we vote for a woman as No. 1?

When will we vote for a woman as No. 1?
BY CAROL MARIN
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
November 12, 2006


Nancy Pelosi is about to make history. On the verge of becoming speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, she will be the first woman to ever do so. The "first woman" to be two heartbeats away from the presidency.
I don't know about you, but I could scream when I hear someone say "first woman" anymore.

Call it a sign of progress if you want. I see it as another maddening reminder of how far we haven't come.

Though it was decades ago, I still remember the poster of Golda Meir on the wall of a college friend's apartment. In big bold letters underneath Meir's black-and-white photo were the words, "Yes, but can she type?"

In the United States at that time, women were 10,000 times more likely to be secretaries (not even "administrative assistants" yet) than they were to be anybody's boss.

Meanwhile, Golda Meir had become the "first woman" prime minister of Israel, a job she held from 1969 until 1974. A chain-smoking grandmother with a plain face, gray hair and a full figure, she was no Nancy Pelosi. Yet she was already running a country and a war.

In the 1970s, not only was Meir the leader of Israel, but Indira Gandhi was prime minister of India and Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of Great Britain.

All were "first women." That was 40 years ago.

But in the greatest democracy in the world, we can't even get a woman as vice president. Just ask Geraldine Ferraro.

Here in Illinois, we've had our own "first women." Among them, Dawn Clark Netsch, who in 1990 became the "first woman" to hold a constitutional office when she was elected comptroller.

Corinne Wood in 1998 became our "first woman" lieutenant governor.

And Judy Baar Topinka became our "first woman" treasurer in 1994, and "first woman" to be re-elected treasurer in 1998.

But not one of them -- not Netsch, Wood or Topinka -- could make her way into the governor's office.

Why not?

It's not as if women don't have the numbers.

In the 2000 U.S. Census, females outnumbered males, 144 million to 138 million. In Illinois more than half the population is female. Just by sheer volume, you'd think women had more than a fighting chance of electing their own.

And there are countless surveys suggesting both women and men are open to the notion of a female president or female governor. Yet we've never seriously considered a woman for president -- not Shirley Chisholm, or Carol Moseley Braun, or Elizabeth Dole.

When it comes to governors, of the 50 states, just eight are women.

So what keeps us from electing more women?

I hate to say this, but often it's we women ourselves who do them in. If politics is a beauty contest, that contest is far more intense for a female candidate.

In the battle between Rod Blagojevich and Judy Baar Topinka, I can't count the number of times I heard women dissect Topinka's hair (too orange), her parade attire (dump the Bermuda shorts and socks), and her constantly clutched coffee cup (get rid of it).

On Tuesday night as she was conceding defeat, I'm ashamed to admit I was staring at the magnetic blue eye shadow she had chosen to wear that evening and blurting out that repulsive Blagojevich refrain, ''What was she thinking?'' I'm not proud of that.

It's true that politics is brutal for men, too. But we are much quicker to get past their appearance in order to consider their ideas. And much less demanding about whether they've been warm and cuddly husbands and dads. We expect them to be ambitious.

But a Nancy Pelosi or a Hillary Clinton? They have to soften the edges of their ambition. Just Thursday, Pelosi, it was reported in the New York Times, was softening her voice so much that at one point, reporters couldn't hear her.

Why is it that recent narratives of her rise to power include so much detail about her children and grandchildren? It's because we demand it. But how many stories do you recall about House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's children or grandchildren?

Lisa Madigan, I'm guessing, has thought about this. She became Illinois' "first woman" attorney general in 2002 and was re-elected on Tuesday to a second term. If the tenor and tone of her television campaign commercial provide any indication, she has already begun to lay the groundwork for a run for governor in 2010.

Yes, we've come a long way, baby . . . but oh, we have such a distance to go.