Yesterday, I was the morning speaker for the Pennsylvania Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession.  The conference theme was “Women and Politics” so my talk focused on how women can increase their political capital by negotiating more effectively, whether they are running for public office or not.  Could the timing have been any more interesting given that news that Hillary Clinton has decided to suspend her campaign broke just last night? Yes, there I was in Pennsylvania, a state that had meant so much to the Clinton candidacy, speaking to a group of women lawyers but I must admit I was feeling very depressed about the outcome of the Clinton campaign. 

Then Gerry Ferraro made me feel better. 

Delivering the luncheon keynote address, she recalled her own historic candidacy, admitting that she did not intend to run for Vice-President in 1984 but rather was considering a run for Senate.  As things happened, Mondale asked her to join the ticket and she took the plunge─and the risk. 

She spoke of the exhilaration she felt at the convention when she looked out at the crowd and saw a sea of women ─ it seems that many of the male delegates had given their floor passes to the alternatives (women) who otherwise would have been in the balcony so that they could more closely share the moment with Ferraro.

But Ferraro also discussed the treatment she (and her family, including her ailing and elderly mother) received at the hands of the media.  She apologized for her language as she recounted that she and Mondale were known as “Fritz (his nickname) and Tits (not her nickname)”.  And she expressed her belief that the media treated Senator Clinton unfairly as well this time around.

Ferraro spoke candidly of the fact that she had shed a couple of tears upon seeing Clinton’s name on the ballot when she voted in the New York primary yet hadn’t welled up in 1984 she voted for herself.  She explained, “I am not an emotional person.  Yet, when I saw Hillary Clinton’s name on the ballot, I felt as though Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were there in the voting booth with me, and urging me to ‘pull the lever, pull the lever.’  The emotion I felt was because Clinton had a real chance of winning. I never thought we had a chance to win.”

By now you may be wondering how Ferraro made me feel better? 

Well, simply being in a room with someone who was such an ardent Clinton supporter made me feel better. 

And that fact that Ferraro is asking for a study to determine whether some of the media stepped “over the line” from their roles as journalists to those as analysts or even strategists made me feel that some of the worst offenders, at least, will get some sort of comeuppance.  I agree with Ferraro that it is important to explore the role of the media so that other women will not hesitate to run for public office because they are reluctant to put themselves in a position where no matter what they do, they can’t win in the press (my interpretation of her concern).

Ferraro also said that Clinton’s run has changed the face of American politics forever.  I agree, and definitely for the better.

Thanks, Gerry.  I needed that.

TAGS: Geraldine A. Ferraro, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, media bias, Politics, Women In the Professions, women role models