Playing on the Women's Team

 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 38^th state to vote to ratify it.

Some firsts for women in my lifetime since I graduated from law school:

1^st SCOTUS justice

1^st state attorney general

1^st woman on the national ticket

1^st black woman U.S. Senator

1^st VA AG/1^st and only VA statewide elected official

1^st US AG

1^st Secretary of State

1^st Speaker of the U.S. House

In 2019, 1^st state legislature to be majority women (Nevada)

In 2020, 1^st VA Speaker and Clerk of the VA House, 1^st 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 45^th 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.