Women in Politics

...Nies has served as a special assistant to a group of liberal Representatives on Capitol Hill...

...But lord, it was a brave thing: And its bravery some way discounted its folly...

...Congress, a study of the eighty-five persons who have had the common experience of being female members of Congress...

...Government in Germany and Austria after World War II, is a free-lance writer based in Washington, whose specialty is women in politics...

...Politics is, after all, about winning...

...Both were men...

...Ghamberlin might have asked a few questions about the nature of political power for women...

...No one suggested that either Jonathan Bingham or James Scheuer should act out their liberal beliefs by running in another district in order to dislodge a conservative, or that one of them should bow out with grace, or that one of them was more effective as a political educator rather than as a winner...

...To understand the pressures on women in politics it is absolutely essential to be aware of the limited political roles that men see women fulfilling, and how destructive the gracious conduct codes imposed on women candidates are to surviving the realities of political struggle...

...Much of the resistance, abuse, and prejudice which Chamberlin describes is rooted in just such narrow perceptions of who is a legitimate figure of authority and wielder of power...

...Defeated in 1918, she was out of office until 1940, when the voters of Montana again returned her to Congress in what was interpreted as a clear expression of support for her well-known pacifist views...

...Substitute the word "men" for "women" in that sentence, and it becomes absurd...

...Not only does Chamberlin pass off the worst gossip as fact, she neglects to mention that at the same time Bella Abzug was subjected to vitriolic abuse for running against "a good man," an almost identical race was taking place between two other liberal Congresspeople, both re-districted, both with identical stands on the issues...

...In a revealing sentence, Chamberlin notes that as women "earned reputations as able lawmakers, they simultaneously lost their identity as women, becoming, in the eyes of colleagues and constituents alike, Members of Congress...

...A recent example was the Democratic primary race in 1971 between Bella Abzug and Bill Ryan, in which Congressional redisricting forced the two New York liberals into a race against each other...

...Women politicians are seen through special lenses, even by those who claim to know them best...

...She voted against the war because she was a life-long pacifist, because she did not believe that sending American men to Asia was in line with the constitutional obligation of "protecting our shores," and finally because she was not convinced that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was one that was entirely unknown or unprovoked by the U.S...

...During Lenore Rom-ney's unsuccessful Senatorial campaign in Michigan, a farmer told her: "Ma'am, we don't vote for women or niggers in this county...

...Reading down her appendix on all women members of Congress, their dates of service, state represented, and party affiliation, it is impossible not to begin counting the number of names followed by "appointed by governor to fill vacancy in term ending . . ." Thirty-nine women came to political office because of the death of a husband or other male relative...

...Why so few...

...Photographs give striking clarity to her well-written profiles of women who have been almost totally neglected by historians...

...William Allen White, publisher of the Emporia Gazette (Kansas), wrote: "Possibly a hundred men in Congress would have liked to do what she did...

...In the introductory material to each chapter she includes information about other female candidates who ran for office during the same period but were not successful...

...Government, a suspicion later investigated by revisionist historians...

...Chamberlin hopes "to provide an answer—or at least a clue" by presenting the background of each of the women, placing them in political context, and giving the highlights of their political careers...

...Thousands of men have passed through the halls of the House and Senate but only eighty-five women...

...Chamberlin, a former reporter-photographer for the Portland Oregonian and an information officer for the U.S...

...Is the very nature of political struggle considered "unfeminine...

...Is power legitimate only if a woman inherits it without asking or fighting for it...

...Ms...

...In 1917 forty-nine other members of Congress voted against the war declaration...

...The major difficulty with the book is that Chamberlin does not analyze the splendid material she has pulled together...

...However, her observations about contemporary political races are limited by a traditional and increasingly useless concept of the "feminine" politician...

...However, in 1941 her single vote of opposition was the source of grave concern to a government which wanted to go to war with no dissenters...

...Not one of them had the courage to do what she did...

...Four years before women had the vote, she arrived in Washington—described by the press as an "Amazon" and "cowgirl" from Montana—just in time to vote against Woodrow Wilson's declaration of war against Germany...

...She is now writing a book on radical women in American history and is co-editor, with Erwin Knoll, of "American Militarism 1970" and "War Crimes and the American Conscience...

...The Gazette entirely disagrees with the wisdom of her position...

...In 1941 Jeannette Rankin was the only member of Congress to vote against entry into World War II...

...Such fascinating historical material is the most valuable aspect of Hope Chamberlin's A Minority of Members: Women in the U.S...