This is the text of a talk I gave in Richmond at a Mindful Mornings event. What's most important in the context of this election and elections in Virginia in 2021 is where it ends ---
"Let’s make a pact here and now that each of us will find and support a woman candidate for governor whose positions on issues we care about are aligned with ours, and refuse now to reject arguments that our candidate can’t win (because she can if we support her).
And, let’s agree not to criticize any woman who is running on her likeability, “electability” or other stereotype furthering basis. Let’s promise each other only to challenge women candidates with whom we disagree on the basis of our substantive disagreement on issues."
Then, and only then,
Only if we play on the women’s team
Can we ALL win.
Mindful
Mornings
April 3,
2020
Gender
Equity -- Electing Women
Our host,
Mindful Mornings Richmond Chapter Founder Becky Crump suggested that I start by
talking about who I am and how I came to be engaged in the work I do.
The simple
answer is heritage and lived experience.
The heritage
part:
I’m the
oldest of six, the daughter of a career military officer and a mother who was
an “activist” who helped ensure that there was a right to education included in
the 1970 revision of the Virginia constitution.
I’m the
granddaughter of the first woman to be a statewide Republican committee woman
in New Jersey.
I’m also the
granddaughter of a woman said to have jumped out of the stands at a high school
football game to become the first woman “yell leader” in West Virginia.
And, I’m the
great granddaughter of a woman who our family lore says road circuit as an
intinerant teacher in Montana with Jeanette Rankin, the woman who went on to
become the first woman in Congress when elected in 1916.
The lived
experience part:
I went to
elementary school when schools in Fairfax County were still legally segregated.
I got my
first job when newspapers still said “help wanted men/help wanted women.”
I graduated
from high school at a time when Virginia colleges and Ivy League schools were
still gender segregated.
Aside: proud to say now that 2 ACLU cooperating
attorneys sued UVA in 1969 to change that.
I entered
law school at a time when only 8% of the students were women. (It’s now almost
50%).
As a law
student, I had to have my dad co-sign the loan for my first new car, not
because I didn’t have the money but because the Equal Credit Opportunity Act
hadn’t passed yet and that’s what banks required of women.
While in law
school, I made my first appearance
before a Virginia General Assembly to testify in favor of the Equal Rights
Amendment, wearing the bracelet I have
on today in celebration of Virginia’s status as the 38th state to
vote to ratify it.
Some firsts
for women in my lifetime since I graduated from law school:
1st
SCOTUS justice
1st
state attorney general
1st
woman on the national ticket
1st
black woman U.S. Senator
1st
VA AG/1st and only VA statewide elected official
1st
US AG
1st
Secretary of State
1st
Speaker of the U.S. House
In 2019, 1st
state legislature to be majority women (Nevada)
In 2020, 1st
VA Speaker and Clerk of the VA House, 1st president pro tem of the
VA Senate
In 1997, I
wrote an article called “The View from the Balcony” about how few women were
then in the Virginia legislature. At that time, only 15% of the members were
women, and there were no woman on House Courts (where decisions were being made
about domestic relations, abortion, and criminal laws), or Senate Finance where
the budget was written and only one woman on House Rules that set the rules for
the House. The lack of women’s voices
showed in what legislation was considered and how it was written. Example 1995 “prison reform”/”no parole”
law. No women at the table when the bill
was being written, not in the legislative committees, not from the AG’s office,
not from the Governor’s office. If there
had been women in the conversation, would prevention been a topic of discussion
in addition to punishment? We won’t ever know.
Twenty two
years later, this year the view and the outcomes are quite different. Women now make up almost 30% of the
legislature. The House Speaker, House Clerk and House Majority leader are all
women. There are five women on House
Courts including the chair and vice-chair; six on House Rules, including the
Speaker as chair; and five on Senate Finance, including the chair. The President Pro Tem of the Senate is the first woman and first Black person to serve in that capacity.
And, the
impact is evident in the list of legislation that is being considered and
passed including: the ERA; repeal of
restrictive abortion laws; new anti-discrimination laws; a pregnant workers’
fairness act; a bill to mandate free tampons and pads for students; an increase
in the minimum wage that includes domestic workers; bills addressing school
lunch and distribution of excess food; changes in juvenile criminal laws
limiting life without parole, trial as adults and custodial interrogation
without notice to parents; bill requiring baby changing facilities in public
buildings; a bill defining birth control; a bill establishing a Director of
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; bills protecting trans students in schools; a
bill regulating doulas and prohibiting health insurers to require
pre-authorization to transfer a newborn to another hospital when the child
needs specialized care.
All of this
is great, of course, but this week should help us all see that our “women’s
work” is far from done.
Knowing from
our experience what a difference the presence of a critical mass of women and
women’s leadership can make – we need to ask ourselves why we haven’t and don’t
seem to want to elect a woman to the top job in our state or the nation.
When I talk
about wanting to elect a woman governor or president, people often challenge me
by asking whether that means I would support a woman who they absolutely know
isn’t aligned with me on issues I care about, and, if not, why not?
In my view,
however, the right question is not whether I would vote or any woman regardless
of her position on issues I care about. The
right question is why a person wouldn’t vote for a candidate who agrees with
them on issues they care about just because that candidate is a woman.
A 2019 NY
Times poll found that 41% of people said they’d vote for Biden but not Warren
over Trump. The reason: women who run for president “just aren’t that
likeable.”
In a January
2020 CNN poll 20% of women said a woman could not win the presidency compared
to 9% men. This despite the amazing gains made by women in the 2018 mid-term
and state elections and the 2019 election results in Virginia.
Why is this?
Bottom line, women who run for the presidency (and in Virginia for the
governorship) violate social norms – including simply the presumed arrogance of
pursuing an ambitious political goal.
These candidates confront what Kathleen Hall Jamison called out as
“double binds” like you can’t be both feminine and competent. You can’t be assertive and nurturing.
Brittany
Cooper, a self-described black feminist, writing in Time Magazine argues that
Warren’s gender was and should have been an “edge” for Warren and was not
irrelevant as some on the left argue. Cooper said, “the experiences one gains
from being marginalized because of racism and sexism offer invaluable perspectives
that often make candidates inclined to be more egalitarian and inclusive,
precisely because they know intimately what exclusion feels like.”
But, the
reality is that Warren’s gender was said even by progressives to irrelevant or a
disqualifier.
And, a key
trope was that people didn’t support Warren because she was a woman, but
because of the kind of woman she was.
Haven’t we
all heard that before? And, I’m not
referring to Hillary Clinton, although people said that often in 2016 and
after.
I am referring
to Mary Sue Terry. During her campaign, Patricia Cornwell (yes, that Patricia
Cornwell) cut an ad for Terry’s male opponent in the governor’s race in which
she literally said that Virginia needed a woman governor “but not this woman.”
Why does
this matter? Because as Gail Evans points out in her book “She Wins, You Win,”
a woman’s criticism of another woman has a saliency that a man’s criticism
would not.
Evans says
“every woman must always play on the woman’s team” in the office and I believe
in politics. Evans underscores that “every time a woman succeeds your chance of
succeeding increases. Every time a woman fails, your chance of failure
increases.” Mary Sue Terry’s 17% loss in 1993 and Clinton’s loss in 2016 have
made people (including women) more “nervous” about whether a woman can get
elected as governor or president.
When women
participate in criticizing other women, they perpetuate stereotypes that come
back to hurt their own chances of success.
No one gives
power away. The more we women help each other the more we all move toward
greater success – if we don’t help we all take a step backwards.
So what now?
Our choice to elect a woman as the 45th president has now passed us
by.
But there is
an election for the next governor of Virginia in 2021.
Let’s make a
pact here and now that each of us will find and support a woman candidate for
governor whose positions on issues we care about are aligned with ours, and
refuse now to reject arguments that our candidate can’t win (because she can if
we support her).
And, let’s
agree not to criticize any woman who is running on her likeability,
“electability” or other stereotype furthering basis. Let’s promise each other
only to challenge women candidates with whom we disagree on the basis of our
substantive disagreement on issues.
Then, and
only then,
Only if we
play on the women’s team
Can we ALL
win.
