Women for Women’s Sake? Yes, for Better or for Worse

A gentleman caller horsewhipped me a few months ago for writing the following about electing women to Congress:

“So, women for women’s sake? Yes, and why not?”

He was offended by the mindlessness of my blanket endorsement of women candidates. I assured him I wasn’t a deep thinker but tried to defend myself by arguing that voting for candidates just because they were women didn’t seem any shallower than voting for candidates just because they were men, which voters have been doing for years.

Well, what can I say? It was 1992, the Year of the Woman, and I was caught up in it. Like a lot of people, I liked Lynn Yeakel over Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate race (although I knew little about Yeakel) and liked Carol Mosely Braun in her Illinois Senate race (although I knew little about Braun). I voted for California’s own Feinstein-Boxer tandem, ever mindful of Boxer’s bounced-check record and the cloud over Feinstein’s campaign contributions during her 1990 governor’s race.

I suggested that a U.S. Senate with two women members out of 100 was, by definition, not reflective of the country. Now we have six and, who knows, maybe someday we’ll have as many as seven or eight.

Now comes Zoe Baird--or should we say, there goes Zoe Baird--and three weeks into the Year After the Year of the Woman she is sent packing. Baird may feel like she’s set back the cause of women in power, but there’s a hopeful sign in the drama surrounding her demise.

Maybe, just maybe, we’re on the road to getting gender out of arguments where it doesn’t belong. Then, if we perfect that, we could get race out of arguments where it doesn’t belong. And, God forbid, maybe even sexual orientation.

Take the Baird case.

Clearly, the prospect of the country’s first woman attorney general elevated the stakes of Baird’s appointment. With memories of John Mitchell and Ed Meese still in my mind, I probably would have voted to confirm Phyllis Diller had she been nominated.

Then came the disclosures that Baird and her husband knowingly hired illegal immigrants as household workers.

Whether as a cold political strategy or not, Baird played the gender card.

In 1992, it probably would have played. Thankfully, it didn’t play this year.

In her defense, Baird testified that she may have been acting more like a mother than a potential attorney general. That mea culpa rightly did not fly with much of the country, because it sounded like Baird was likening herself to the millions of single mothers on limited incomes who must find quality day-care at prices they can afford.

A flawed strategy, to be sure. For one thing, Baird didn’t make the decision herself. She, after all, is married to another professional. And with her income of $500,000 a year and her husband’s handsome salary, the couple was hardly up against it.

Hearteningly, one of the first and most eloquent advocates for Baird’s disqualification was Patricia King, a law professor at Georgetown University. Later, Democratic Party icon Barbara Jordan joined in, saying Baird should withdraw. From that point, Baird was toast.

In the final analysis, the issue wasn’t a woman’s issue and wasn’t treated as such. Baird was disqualified on gender-neutral grounds--she flaunted the law because she could afford to.

Compare the Baird debate to the mini-storm that recently swirled around Braun.

Linking her candidacy early on to the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, Braun portrayed herself during the 1992 campaign as a champion of people without privilege and influence.

But since her election, it was disclosed that Braun paid her boyfriend/former campaign manager a salary of $15,000 a month for two months, despite reporting a campaign debt of nearly $450,000. She also joined him and her son on a lengthy overseas trip while other senators-elect were in Washington learning the ropes. She also moved into a penthouse apartment on Chicago’s lakefront after the election, a bit of a leap from her election-year image as a single working mother.

To which, Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, said: “I think she’ll be subject to a lot of scrutiny because she’s so highly visible. . . . Perhaps it will take a little time for her to adjust, (but) she’ll do a great job when the Senate gets down to its substantive business.”

For argument’s sake, merely take everything Braun did and attach it to a white male candidate. I think Ireland may have had a more flavorful sound bite.

We heard a lot last year about “women for women’s sake” and the virtue and sensitivity they would bring to government. Many of them will. Some of them will not.

In the name of fair play and good government, it’s important that we be able to tell the difference.

What gives pleasure from the Baird incident is not her demise--she probably would have made at least as good an attorney general as Clarence Thomas will a Supreme Court justice--but a sense that we can restore some equilibrium to the system.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we began a long-running phase in which candidates or appointees aren’t excluded just because they’re women?

Or automatically exulted in for the very same reason.