COLUMN LEFT : Women’s Vote Is Wasted in Congress : The sisterhood of concern for peace is betrayed by politics.

In conversations with each other and in their responses to polls conducted since U.S. military intervention began in the Middle East, American women have expressed far more doubts than men about the wisdom of war.

Before the shooting started, women dramatically outnumbered men in their support for sanctions against Iraq rather than the use of force. Even after Jan. 16, a higher percentage still preferred a negotiated solution to the conflict.

But this does not give women grounds for self-congratulation as morally superior, for there is a serious gap among women, a gap between what they say and what they do, between the anti-war sentiment of women generally and the stance of most of the women we’ve elected to Congress.

Just because women are more inclined to want peaceful solutions to international problems doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re willing to be involved enough in politics to exert any real influence on the nation’s foreign and military policies. Even those who get out and campaign or vote for female candidates can’t be assured that gender alone will make women in office more likely to oppose military action consistently than men, particularly in the face of the pro-war fervor that’s been whipped up in America today.

Many of today’s key female political leaders got elected promising to give women a greater--and different--voice in politics. But in Congress lately, more than a few have sounded disturbingly like their male colleagues. On Jan. 19, for example, only one out of the 31 female legislators, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), voted against a congressional resolution equating support for American troops with backing of the Bush Administration policies that have put them in jeopardy. (Twelve House members in all voted “no” or “present”; in the Senate, the measure passed unanimously.)

Typical of the legislators’ sentiments was this remark by the District of Columbia’s newly elected (and non-voting) House delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, a leading feminist and former civil-rights activist: “We gather our wagons around our President in respect and support of him, his office, and the awesome responsibility that we have placed on him by majority vote.”

In the pre-war debate on sanctions vs. force that produced a much narrower mandate for the Administration, female legislators responded better--but their votes broke down along party lines rather then just gender, with three Democratic women and all but one of the Republicans voting for force.

The speed with which female legislators originally opposed to the war fell in line should give pause to those feminist theorists and political activists who assumed that electing more women to public office would automatically make a difference. Subject as they are to the same jingoistic pressures and re-election fears that afflict their male colleagues, female members of Congress are unlikely to regain their voice until they hear from the women who elected them.

The gender gap in the country at large will make itself felt where it really counts--on Capitol Hill--only when thousands of women go beyond talking about the war and do something about it. Whether it’s by writing a letter, joining a march or vigil, or personally lobbying elected officials, women must turn their private reservations about the war into public political activity.

One important place to start is with the women in Congress whose voices have fallen silent on the war or, worse yet, who have become cheerleaders for it. We must remind them that military involvement in the Middle East means the destruction of the “women’s agenda” at home. If we continue to spend more than half a billion dollars a day on the war, there will be little left for national health insurance, education, child care, or any social services.

The need for greater accountability and responsiveness on the part of female officeholders assumes particular importance here in California, where redistricting has created seven new congressional seats. This expanded opportunity for the political advancement of women will be truly meaningful only if candidates emerge who are willing and able to buck the tide of militarism, now and in the future. And they’ll never be able to run, win or maintain their commitment to the cause of peace without the active support and constant vigilance of female constituents.

For women, the moral of the Gulf War so far is clear: The gender gap will be nothing more than a cliche unless women transform their more humane political insights and inclinations into a powerful political force for change.