Leave Measure Hits Home for Feinstein, Boxer : Politics: The senators, both working women who left jobs to have children, contribute their personal experiences to the debate.

One was a 23-year-old state government employee in San Francisco when she left her job to have her only child. Within two years, she was a single mother searching for work to support her daughter.

The other was a 24-year-old stockbroker on Wall Street when she became pregnant with the first of her two children. She hid the fact from her supervisors by wearing loose-fitting clothes so she could hang on to her job before being forced to quit months later.

Today, California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are among the staunchest supporters of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which will guarantee workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for newborn infants or sick family members. The bill was passed by the House and the Senate on Thursday. President Clinton is expected to sign it this morning.

Throughout their campaigns for office last year, Feinstein and Boxer stressed the importance of bringing a woman’s perspective to the male-dominated Senate. The family leave bill--the first piece of major legislation to be considered this year--provided the two senators with the perfect opportunity to bring their personal experiences to bear on a national issue.

“This bill means a great deal to me,” Feinstein told the nation Tuesday in her first speech on the Senate floor. “Thirty-five years ago, when I gave birth to my daughter, Katherine, there was no maternity leave. I left my job to have my child.”

Feinstein said she mentioned the birth of her daughter to “personalize” the plight of working mothers and illustrate how far the nation has come in providing benefits to women in the workplace.

In separate interviews, Feinstein and Boxer recalled their experiences as working women who gave up their jobs to have children.

Feinstein now is the sixth-wealthiest member of Congress, with an estimated net worth of $40 million with her third husband, financier Richard Blum. Boxer also is a millionaire, with most of her income coming from her husband, Stewart, an Oakland attorney.

But three decades ago, their financial situations weren’t nearly so comfortable.

It was 1956 when Dianne Berman, a graduate of Stanford University with a Coro Fellowship, worked in downtown San Francisco setting up hearings for the California Industrial Welfare Commission, the panel that set minimum wages, hours and working conditions in a variety of the state’s industries.

She became pregnant within a year, bringing a temporary halt to her career.

“I left and I had my child,” Feinstein said. “It was just understood.”

Her marriage to Jack Berman fell apart, and Feinstein found herself a single mother with a 2-year-old daughter, looking for employment.

“It became extraordinarily difficult for me to get a job. Not only was there not family leave, but I think there was a very definite bias against women with small children being in the workplace in those days,” she said.

Feinstein found work in 1960, when Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown appointed her to the California Women’s Board of Terms and Parole, a position that paid “enough to get by on,” she said. One year later, she married neurosurgeon Bertram Feinstein and launched her political career in 1969, when she was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

In 1964, Boxer became pregnant while earning $200 a week filling in for vacationing stockbrokers at the Wall Street firm of Zuckerman & Smith. Boxer said she was the household’s sole breadwinner because her husband was attending law school at Fordham University.

“My job was very important,” Boxer said. “When I got pregnant, I didn’t tell a soul. I just kept wearing bigger and bigger dresses. It was expected that if you told your employer you were pregnant, they would say, ‘Don’t come back to work anymore.’ ”

Boxer quit at the start of her ninth month of pregnancy. Upon leaving, Boxer said, the firm cut off her health insurance, and she was forced to have her son, Douglas, in a public ward.

She did not return to work full-time until 1974, when she was hired as an aide to Rep. John Burton (D-San Francisco), whose seat she filled when she was elected to the House in 1982.

Today, as U. S. senators, Feinstein and Boxer say they hope that the family leave bill is the first in a series of measures addressing a wide range of issues affecting working women. Among them are enhanced child care, equal pay for equal work and added protection against sexual discrimination in the workplace.

“I think the family leave bill is very symbolic for America,” Feinstein said. “It heralds the decade of the ‘90s. If you are going to have public policy that speaks to family values in this country, this is the linchpin.”