By Sean J. Miller

When Patty Judge was first elected to the Iowa Senate in 1992, she remembers visitors to her office would often ask her receptionist the same question — who was taking care of Judge’s children? “People still ask me how do I find time to do all the things I do and still handle my home and my family,” says Judge, who also served as Secretary of Agriculture before being elected lieutenant governor last November. “They wouldn’t ask that question of the governor.”

The personal scrutiny applied to women in politics has existed since the barrier to their participation was torn away close to a century ago. Many female politicians in Iowa say attitudes and perceptions have changed greatly in the past decades, citing advances like women taking leadership roles in the Legislature and a female contender for the presidency. But, they add, there are still hidden challenges that don’t exist for their male counterparts.

Sunday marks the 87th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” The amendment removed restrictions that curtailed women’s roles in society considerably.

When the First Women’s Rights Convention convened in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848, American women lived very different lives from their 21st century contemporaries. They couldn’t vote; they couldn’t run for office; they couldn’t own property; they couldn’t get divorced. “Women had no rights, nothing,” says Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University. “Women were basically considered property. They got together because they were tired of being second-class citizens.”

The struggle for women’s democratic rights lasted almost a century. Women suffragists, together with some men, staged marches and letter writing campaigns, gave lectures, lobbied elected officials, wrote songs and articles. They argued women had the same faculties as men and should be accorded the same rights. Men resisted because they saw women as too pristine to enter the dirty world of politics.

Some suffrage groups pushed for voting rights to be granted state by state, which was a partially successful strategy. Western states like Wyoming and Montana passed constitutional amendments allowing women to vote before the universal suffrage amendment was ratified by Tennessee, the final state to do so, on Aug. 18, 1920. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on Aug. 26, 1920.

Iowa amended its constitution the year before, but it wasn’t until 1929 that the first woman was elected to the state House, according to the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women. There are now 34 female legislators, a record number, occupying 22 percent of the seats in the Capitol. Despite the recent increase of women in the Legislature, several female members say there are still barriers that remain to women taking office.

“When we’re running for office we’re critiqued on everything — how our clothes are, how our hair is styled — men aren’t,” says Rep. Lisa Heddens, House Assistant Majority Leader. “You’re this politician, and you need to look 100 percent, always.”

The scrutiny applied to the wardrobe of female candidates recently became a small national controversy when the Washington Post published an article by fashion writer Robin Givhan that discussed a cleavage-revealing outfit Sen. Hillary Clinton wore while giving a speech on the Senate floor. Givhan, who won a Pulitzer Prize for fashion criticism in 2006, writes, “It was startling to see that small acknowledgment of sexuality and femininity peeking out of the conservative — aesthetically speaking — environment of Congress.” A debate over whether Givhan’s critique was justified ensued in the press, and Clinton’s campaign turned the “746-word article” into a fundraising rallying cry.

That extra scrutiny women endure concerning their appearance will likely always be around, says Heddens. “Women are probably always going to be in a position to strive harder.”

Senate Minority Leader Mary Lundby, who has spent 22 years in the Capitol, says that fashion isn’t a woman’s only concern when running for office. “I’ve never been a fashion queen, so no one ever expected me to look great,” she says, laughing.

“When I first ran, there was really very little support for women candidates,” Lundby says. “It was difficult to raise money.” Women would go to their friends for support, while men could go to the bankers and lawyers in the community, she says. Lundby was able to raise money from a network of friends and family for her first House race, she recalls, though at times women’s attitudes could be just as much of a barrier as men’s.

“They always expected me to be pictured [in newspapers] with my husband and child,” she says. “There were times when I was door knocking, the people said ‘aren’t you afraid to be in the big city by yourself.’” Some women, she learned, “can’t imagine” leaving their families for work. Lundby, on the other hand, wasn’t concerned about leaving her husband alone with their son, she says. “I only had one son, and my husband is a phenomenal father, so he didn’t mind one bit being the boss of the household.”

As Lundby’s career progressed from rookie House member to being the first woman Speaker to taking a leadership role in the Senate, she found herself tasked with the responsibility of recruiting candidates to run for office, she says.

Lundby quickly learned recruiting female candidates to run for office is difficult, she says. Potential female candidates had a standard line. “If I asked them [to run] and they had young children, they’d say ‘I just can’t leave Bob by himself,’” Lundby says. “I didn’t have very good luck recruiting women.”

The women who did run for office have paved the way for the next generation. During last Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines, Clinton said she owed a debt of gratitude to the women who came before her.

“I could not be standing here without the women’s movement — without generations of women who broke down barriers,” she said. “I owe the opportunity that I have here today to many people, some of whom are known to history and many who aren’t.

“But more personally I owe it to my mother, who never got a chance to go to college, who had a very difficult childhood, but gave me a belief that I could do whatever I set my mind to,” Clinton said.

Bystrom, who studies women in politics, says that one of the biggest obstacles to women gaining elected office is their role in the household. “They’re still the primary caregiver in the home. Men with five children run for political office; women with five children don’t run for political office,” she says, adding they have the same odds of getting elected. “It’s just fewer of them actually run.”

Part of the reason why women have the same chance of getting elected is that they make up the majority of the voting public. “The number of women voting has been higher than men since 1964, and that’s carried through till today, and in 1980, a greater proportion of women voted than men and that’s carried through,” Bystrom says. Adding, there are now three million more women voters than men in the country.

More women need to be trained to run for office, Bystrom says, especially in Iowa. While there is a growing percentage of women in the Legislature, and there has been two female lieutenant governors, Iowa is one of only five states that has never elected a woman to Congress. It’s one of only two states — the other is Mississippi — that has never elected a woman governor, according to the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women.

That’s why the Carrie Chapman Catt Center and other organizations, such as the White House Project, offer training courses for women interested in running for office, Bystrom says. Once women actually get elected, it sparks a domino effect.

“Once you have women in high profile offices, it inspires other women to think ‘ok, I can do this,’” Bystrom says.

Although Iowa still hasn’t elected a woman governor, Heddens says that hasn’t stopped female legislators from taking prominent leadership roles in the House. Female legislators were responsible for floor managing — providing opening and closing comments on a bill, endorsing amendments — several major bills during the last session.

Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell floor managed the same-day voter registration bill, Rep. Jo Oldson floor managed a major appropriations bill and Rep. Cindy Winckler floor managed the bill that increased teachers’ salaries, Heddens says. “More and more women are taking on more responsibilities in the Legislature. This is how far women have come.”

Heddens, who’s serving her third term in the House, says she’s tried to share her interest in politics with her 17-year-old daughter, Makenzie. “I talk with her and say ‘these are some of the things we’re working on,’” Heddens says, such as increasing education funding or raising the legal dropout age to 18.

“When I first ran, it was a little bit more embarrassing to have your mom run for office and see yard signs around,” she says. Makenzie got used to it and developed her own interest in politics. She’s now working on Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Heddens says. “At this point, she doesn’t have that desire to run for office, but it’s still early.” That interest in politics, which Heddens instilled in her daughter, is spreading to Makenzie’s friends, she says. “I see a ripple effect because her friends want to get involved as well.”

Lundby, who recently announced she’s leaving the Senate at the end of her term in 2008, says political role models have to fill in for the shortcomings of the political training the parties provide. “We have no farm team in either party,” she says, referring to a means of grooming candidates through successively higher offices. “We have to have a farm team in either party for a woman to be governor — parties need to bring people up through the ranks.”

The debate over whether women have the capacity for democratic participation seems quaint in today’s era. President Bush recently declared Aug. 26 Women’s Equality Day, to commemorate the 19th Amendment. Still, women in politics say voting rights are only part of the struggle for equality.

“We’ve got a ways to go. The struggle is not complete, and it won’t be complete until we elect women to the highest offices in our country and in our state,” says Judge. “I was elected Secretary of Agriculture in Iowa — if you can elect a Democrat woman to Secretary of Agriculture in Iowa, you can elect a woman to anything.”

Women who are considering a run for the governorship, which Judge did briefly, should start planning more than a year out, she says. “You have to build a base, and that’s something that women have not done yet.”
Someone will soon, though, says Judge, who keeps a 3-by-4-foot photo of Iowa suffragist Annie Savery behind her desk. “She stands here everyday so I can remember we have to keep working.” CV

A song for the free
By G. A. Wrightman

“Put on strength, O world of women,
For your place and birthright stand
The savage night is gone, the morn
Of Reason lights the land.
Slave and victim now no longer,
Raise your voice, put forth your hand,
For all women shall be free.

Distributed by the Votes for Women League in Des Moines in 1916.

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