2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Are you old enough to remember real Dem's? [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)giving me a laundry list of rare flowers, in essence, makes my point all the more stark.
How many women were in the NY delegation with Bella, hmmmm? Anything approaching proportional representation?
Didn't think so.
And Shirley won her seat ONLY because of redistricting--she wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise. Look it up.
FWIW, Geraldine didn't go to Washington until 1979--she was not a force to be reckoned with "in the seventies." In fact, when Mondale chose her to serve on the ticket as hiss VP, before they ripped the shit out of her HUSBAND, they first pinged her on her lack of experience. They were a bit shocked at how well she held her own as a trailblazer.
Milkulski went to the House from MD in 77 and didn't get to the Senate until the mid-eighties.
How many women were in the TX delegation with Barbara Jordan? Talk about being alone in the wilderness!
These women didn't even have a place to PEE when they showed up in the halls of power. They were dismissed, disregarded and denigrated. It was very difficult and lonely for them.
How soon people forget.
Here's a link to the total number of women who have EVER served in the House, going back to Jeanette Rankin. Now keep in mind that today we fill 435 seats in that chamber alone. You'll see that most of them served well AFTER the seventies.
They're still WOEFULLY under-represented in public life. Time for that shit to change.