They Also Made History

By Jane O''Reilly

Some people, most of them male, wondered what all the fuss was about, the tears and excitement. How would they have felt, the men, if the rules had been reversed? What if, in the 197 years since the Constitution was written, someone of their sex had never been considered for the job? What if, apart from a male President, they had never seen a male bishop, or chairman of the board of General Motors? They would have felt the way women did before Geraldine Ferraro was nominated to run for Vice President on the Democratic ticket. Excluded.

The women's movement, stung by the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982, had redoubled its efforts to secure a greater role for women in the nation's political life. The Democratic Convention was the spectacular culmination of those efforts. Women across the country spoke of feeling validated, of being at last included, of, simply, being proud. That pride grew as it became clear that Ferraro was especially suited to her historic role.

Americans wanted her to be perfect, according to a million conflicting definitions of perfection, and of course she fell far short. But she probably came as close to the needs of the task as anybody could have. Her hair, her glasses, her polka-dot dress were all part of an intangible and authentic star quality that transformed a little-known Congresswoman from Queens into a national celebrity. Above all, it was the set of her jaw and the firm, conclusive nod of her head following some statement or other beginning, "Frankly, lemme tell ya," that showed the strength at her core.

Ferraro's manner did turn off many voters. But in the end, she went a long way toward convincing all but the most skeptical that she had the right stuff, not only to become the first woman and the first Italian American to run on a major party's national ticket, but to be equal to the stress of being a heartbeat away from the presidency. Continuously under a scrutiny more intense than was ever before applied to a vice-presidential candidate, she made few gaffes and gave no ground. With her candidacy hanging in the balance, she called a press conference to explain her unquestionably sloppy financial dealings and astonished everyone with her grit and control. In her televised debate with George Bush, she maintained a cool gravity and delighted the audience by calmly objecting to the Vice President's apparent condescension.

Her campaign was dogged by innuendoes linking her family to organized crime, and she did not hesitate to slug it out. When the tabloid New York Post reported that her parents had once been arrested on gambling charges, the furious Ferraro said Post Publisher Rupert Murdoch "doesn't have the worth to wipe the dirt from under my mother's shoes." Ferraro's own Roman Catholic Church attacked her pro-choice stand on abortion, but she insisted that the decision must be a woman's, not the state's. When heckled by antiabortion activists, she shot back with wisecracks learned on the streets of New York. Throughout, Ferraro remained courageous, tenacious, womanly; she may have lost her temper now and then but never her sense of humor.

Some successful women leaders, Margaret Thatcher to name one, are gender neutral: they do not speak for the hopes and concerns of women any more than a male leader would. But Ferraro ran for Vice President as a feminist--and as a symbol of the transformation in the lives of American women over the past 20 years. She realized, as did most American women, that her campaign was a risk. Was the risk worth it? The answer lies not with the result but with the women, and men, who looked at Ferraro and sensed a limitless future for their daughters. Whichever way people voted (and, by and large, they voted against the Democratic ticket, not just 63% of the men but 56% of the women), whether they liked or disliked Ferraro, her campaign probably advanced by at least ! ten years the full participation of women in the responsibilities and opportunities of the American dream. When she told women, "If we can do this, we can do anything," tens of thousands shouted back, echoing her resolve. Robert Kennedy would quote George Bernard Shaw: "You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?' " Democracy depends on those dreams, and on the people like Geraldine Ferraro who are willing to test the question.