Columnist E.J. Dionne: If women lose, they’re still a part of the mix

Monday, Oct. 19, 1998 | 11:52 a.m.

MYRTH YORK, the Democratic candidate for governor of Rhode Island and a former state senator, chuckles at the sorts of questions that still get tossed at female politicians.

"People ask," she says, " 'What's it like to be a woman in the Senate?' My answer always is: I don't know. I know what it's like to be me in the Senate."

York reflects the matter-of-factness of women in politics that is a major story in the 1998 campaign. It's a story in danger of getting buried under nostalgia for the 1992 "Year of the Woman."

Because three key figures to emerge from that banner year for women in politics -- Sens. Carol Moseley-Braun, D-Ill., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Patty Murray, D-Wash. -- face strong challenges, this year threatens to be cast as a big rollback for the political power of women.

The opposite is the case: Whatever happens to this Breakthrough Three (and, by the way, one or more of them could survive), women are continuing their long march through the institutions. They're doing so by the same means men have used throughout the history of the republic.

Women are winning at the grass roots, building political organizations in both parties and becoming powers in their communities and their states.

Anita Perez Ferguson, president of the National Women's Political Caucus, predicts more gains this year. "We're going to see a lot more change than people expect in terms of the male-female ratio." As Terry Neal pointed out recently in the Washington Post, women have won 130 primaries for House and Senate seats this year, up from 61 in 1988.

Even this year's Senate races underscore the point. In Washington, Murray is still the favorite. But if she loses, she'll lose to another woman, Republican Rep. Linda Smith, a shrewd, tough conservative organizer who's successfully battled more established (and more moderate) politicians.

York, running five points behind Rhode Island's Republican Gov. Lincoln Almond in a poll this week by a Providence TV station, offers a classic example of political diligence. In 1994, she surprised the state establishment by beating the incumbent governor in a primary. She lost narrowly to Almond, but just kept organizing.

"Having run in '94 and now, again, people have gotten more used to the idea of a woman as governor," she says. "It seems more realistic."

Realistic is the right word, because thousands of women are now climbing their way through the system. Take Colorado, where Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler, the Democrats' nominee for governor, started out as a county board of education member and was later elected state treasurer.

Thousands of other women are pursuing comparable paths. In 1977, according to Ferguson's group, in cities of 30,000 population or more, there were 47 women mayors -- 6.2 percent of the total. Twenty years later, 203 of the mayors were women -- or 20.1 percent.

Nearly 1,600 women are state legislators, 21.5 percent of the total, up from 9 percent in 1977. In seven states -- Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Vermont, New Hampshire and Minnesota -- women hold 30 percent or more of the legislative seats.

Steady political gains by women are no longer big news. And that's the big news. So even if you're so inclined, don't mourn that this will be no Year of the Woman. It will be a highly partisan election in which women play major roles on both sides. Isn't that what the breakthroughs of '92 were supposed to create?