Eve's Operatives

Gazing around the convention through her blue-tinted glasses, Gloria Steinem pronounced with satisfaction: "We've changed the population here. It almost looks like the country." What she meant was that women are 52% of the nation's population, and last week close to 40% of the convention delegates were women--a dramatic jump over their 13% representation at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Decorative as the women were in their bell-bottom trousers, miniskirts, jeans and hot pants, they were not there to be on display but to seek power. Except for a couple of setbacks, they got enough to satisfy and even surprise them.

The National Women's Political Caucus had worked hard to get women elected as delegates under the liberalized McGovern-Fraser Commission rules. At the convention, they turned up everywhere in positions of power --on the Credentials Committee, the Rules Committee, the Platform Committee. They came in all sizes, ages and accents. They ranged from Katherine Harjo, 17, a Seminole Indian from Oklahoma to Jessie Sanders, 79, a political pro from South Dakota. The convention's cochairman, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, a black running for Congress from California, wielded the gavel with muscle, tact and a winning smile. Delegates were careful to address her as "Madam Chairwoman," or, at least once, as "Madam Chairperson." Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York won a small but loyal following for her presidential candidacy. Frances ("Sissy") Farenthold, a Vassar-educated Texan who ran well for Governor earlier this year, was nominated for Vice President and came in second to Eagleton. On the convention's last night, Jean Westwood of Utah, a Mormon who served as one of McGovern's floor managers, was elected the first woman Democratic national chairman.

Male delegates were sufficiently on guard not to begin a talk to women with such traditional lines as "You lovely ladies" or "What feminine pulchritude." Even the slightest slip of the tongue by the best-meaning male brought swift retribution. At one of the sessions of the Women's Caucus, McGovern was introduced by Liz Carpenter with the compliment: "We are all here because of him." Trying to make a joke, McGovern replied: "The credit should go to Adam." Seeing nothing funny, the women hissed until he pleaded: "Can I recover by saying Adam and Eve?" Shouted an alternate delegate: "Make it Eve and Adam."

Unsisterly. Not all the women delegates were so faithful to Eve. Some wore conventional street-length dresses, studiously ignored the militants, deferred ostentatiously to men and even attended a fashion show. At one caucus, Minnesota Delegate Yvette Oldendorf, smartly attired in a pantsuit, rose to protest: "I find it an extreme insult to suggest that women delegates should be attending style shows while the men attend to the business of the convention," prompting the remark: "My God, it sounded like she was saying, They are slaughtering Christians down on 34th Street.'" Militants took action against women they considered to be traitors to their sex. Those who stayed at the Playboy Plaza proselytized the bewildered Bunnies as earnestly as the Jesus freaks buttonholed passers-by on the streets. When a prostitute scrounged a pass and started to solicit on the convention floor, she was promptly expelled.

Womanpower produced a comprehensive party plank calling for an end to discrimination against women in every imaginable area. But the plank was most conspicuous for what it omitted: any mention of abortion, the central issue for today's politicized woman. It gave the women delegates a lesson they are not likely to forget in practical politics that knows no sex. Trying to get a pro-abortion minority plank adopted, they met resistance from the McGovern forces, who were determined to keep the sensitive issue out of the campaign. The women were already smarting from McGovern's failure to support on the floor their challenge to the South Carolina delegation, which they said lacked a sufficient number of women. In the caucus, McGovern had said that he "fully and unequivocally" backed the women on South Carolina. Betty Friedan complained: "We were cynically misused." Now they were outraged, and in the case of Gloria Steinem, tearful with rage. Calling the McGovern operatives "bastards," she had to be led from the floor in the middle of the abortion debate.

The women were surprised and distressed by a right-to-life speaker, St. Louis Attorney Eugene Walsh, who proclaimed: "We want our young to live to be born. If we adopt a report that gives approval to snuffing out life in early times, what hope can we give the elderly Americans that their lives won't be extinguished?" Argued Delegate Jennifer Wilkie: "The freedom of all people to control their own fertility must be an essential human and health right."

After Shirley MacLaine gave a speech that seemed to support McGovern's position, Bella Abzug confronted her. "A sister never goes against a sister," boomed Bella, undaunted by her 2-1 loss to Congressman William Fitts Ryan in the New York primary. "This cannot be tolerated." Retorted Shirley: "Sisters have a right to have pragmatic politics as well as personal principles." After Bella stormed off, Shirley remarked: "She's getting to be more theatrical than I am. Jesus Christ, every time the red light goes on, she gets up there and does her number. I guess I'm getting into her profession, so she's getting into mine." Liz Carpenter was philosophical. "If we'd waited until we all loved one another, we'd never have taken Bunker Hill."

Spurred by their success at the convention, the women are eager for future battles. They are laying plans to claim a bigger share of American political life. With the experience of the convention behind them, many women are planning to run for public office. "Women may be almost 40% of the delegates," says Friedan, "but that doesn't mean we have 40% of the power. But we are learning quickly how to use power. By the next convention there will be a lot of women here with real power. I expect to see three times as many female officeholders by that time."

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