Woman's Work

For most women congressional candidates, it was a dismal election week. One, Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas, was elected to the Senate, but the two women who are already there are leaving: Muriel Humphrey of Minnesota and Maryon Allen of Alabama. Forty-five women ran for Congress, but only 16 won election, two fewer than in 1976.

Still, there were some bright spots. Women increased their total of seats in state legislatures from 703 to 761 and doubled their numbers in lieutenant governorships to six. In Maryland, women won half of the state's eight seats in Congress: Republican Marjorie Holt and Democrats Gladys Spellman and Barbara Mikulski were reelected, while Democrat Beverly Byron won the seat vacated by the death of her husband. Other notable women candidates last week included:

> Democrat Geraldine Ferraro, a former assistant district attorney running for Congress from the New York borough of Queens, beat Republican Alfred DelliBovi by ten percentage points. She campaigned on the issues of crime, neighborhood deterioration and help for the elderly.

> Olympia Snowe, a G.O.P. state senator in Maine, won election to Congress by taking a conservative stance on fiscal issues and hiking 450 miles through her rural district to meet the voters. She out-legged Democratic Secretary of State Markham Gartley by eight percentage points.

> Two-term Democratic Representative Martha Keys of Kansas once had a twelve-point lead in polls over conservative Republican Jim Jeffries. But right-to-life adherents ganged up on her, and others doubted her ability to combine her marriage to Indiana Representative Andrew Jacobs with representing Kansas. Said Jeffries: "Martha doesn't shop here any more." She lost by 48% to 52%.

> Virginia Shapard, a wealthy Democrat, lost her race for Congress in Georgia when Republican Opponent Newt Gingrich, a former college professor, accused her of condoning welfare cheating and being out of touch with average voters. Said one newspaper: "If elected, she will be apparently leaving her four young children at home to be reared by the servants."

> Democrat Jane Eskind, who ran a foredoomed race in Tennessee against Republican Senator Howard Baker, still managed to get 464,000 votes, more than any other woman in the state's history. "We have women in the courthouse, city hall, mayor's chair and state legislature," says Eskind. "But I think voting for a woman for national office is still an issue in Tennessee." Indeed, it is in most states.

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