A Woman’s Place Is in the House --and the Senate and Legislatures

For 76 years, Aug. 26 has been a day to celebrate the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote and guaranteed our equality in at least that one aspect of civic life.

For over 20 years, through federal legislation and presidential proclamation, it has been called Women’s Equality Day, a term that expressed the high hopes of the ‘70s. If the name is ever to become a reflection of political reality, however, women must now--this year, this month, this day--join together to launch the final wave of the suffrage movement, to guarantee our equality as full participants in the democratic process which extends beyond the voting booth.

Our goal must be to elect women to 50% of the seats in Congress and state legislatures by the year 2020, the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. It’s a matter of adequate representation and fulfillment of the potential of the right to vote.

Women and men differ in their support of candidates, as seen by the gender gap which has been evident since 1980. They also differ in their views on public policy issues. In a Congress that is 89% male, issues of importance to women do not get a fair hearing. Simply as voters, women can only appeal to their male representatives for support or opposition of specific legislation. They are perennial petitioners, not co-equal policymakers.

Carrie Chapman Catt, suffragist leader and founder of the League of Women Voters, warned us that gaining the vote was just the opening “wedge.” “Learning to use it is the bigger task,” she said.

It took a long time for women to become comfortable voting or running for office. Not until 1980 did women vote at about the same rate as men. Women candidates also have a better shot at election than in earlier days because the public’s attitude toward women in public office has changed. A 1992 Times Mirror poll showed that 74% of women and 63% of men thought the nation would be better off if more women served in Congress.

To take that thought and turn it into an accomplished fact will require the same level of sustained passion, determination and organization that those working for women’s suffrage had. We have to encourage more women to run, even if it means challenging a male incumbent. We have to give financial support to female candidates. Above all, we have to use the tool the 19th Amendment gave us--the power of the vote.

Women must start voting for women whenever possible. That may often mean ignoring party affiliation, but it does not mean voting blindly or making a foolish choice. Every woman is free to apply her own personal litmus test. But when the choices are not clear, it means giving the benefit of the doubt and the benefit of one’s vote to the woman.

Women have made progress over the years, but it has been slow and sporadic. In 1971, half a century after gaining the right to vote, women made up only 3% of Congress and 5% of state legislatures. By 1991, we had 6% of the seats in Congress and 18% of those in state legislatures.

In 1992, hailed as the “Year of the Woman,” more women ran for national office and won than ever before, their victories made possible by a combination of an unusually large number of open seats and women’s outrage over Anita Hill’s treatment by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The percentage of women in state legislatures went over 20% and the percentage of those in Congress shot up to 10% as women gained 19 additional seats in the House and four in the Senate. That momentum was not sustained in the 1994 elections which added only two more women to Congress (for a total of eight in the Senate; 48 in the House).

To attain a fair and equal representation in Congress, women must hold 268 seats, 212 more than we have now. We can do this by 2020 if just 16 additional seats go to women in every election. We have 24 years, 13 election cycles, to reach the goal of 50/50 by then.

California, which sends more women to Congress than any other state, needs to add 17 women to its delegation to reach 50/50. This is a race for the Olympic gold of politics, a race in which every woman can participate simply by using her vote to elect women.

We now have the numbers and the voting strength. If we have the vision, we can celebrate a true Women’s Equality Day on the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.