On a chilly night in late 1988, more than 75 women packed into a stuffy room on the 5th floor of City Hall. Among them were members of women`s organizations as diverse in purpose as the Junior League, the Coalition for Labor Union Women and Planned Parenthood.
A city photographer scurried about, snapping shots of the event-the Chicago Commission on Women`s annual report to the mayor. But the obligatory photo of Peggy Montes, the commission`s executive director, handing over the 24-page report was taken without the mayor. He was in New York on pressing business, the group was told.
The city`s women`s commission is fighting for its esteem. That annual report session-packed into a tiny room and snubbed by the mayor-may illustrate its image problem, but it is also a harbinger of change.
Its very existence is seen as a milestone by women from major organizations outside city government. It`s a sign that the earnest naivete of the early women`s movement is being replaced by increasing political sophistication.
Five years ago, Chicago became one of the last major cities to form an office on women`s issues. The Washington, D.C., Commission for Women dates back to 1967. New York formed its Commission on the Status of Women in 1975. Los Angeles formed one in 1976.
Now celebrating its fifth anniversary, Chicago`s commission gradually has achieved a track record of assisting women who want to do business with or be employed by the city.
It has not taken an active stand on a broad range of women`s legislation, as the New York City commission has. Nor has it the budget or staff to open a city day-care center, as the Los Angeles commission did last month.
Peggy Montes has been executive director since 1985. The diminutive, low- key Montes says she aims for slow change and uses indirect, subtle persuasion to achieve change. ”If I back them into a wall, who do you think is going to end up moving? They are in control, so it won`t be them. I am satisfied with small pieces at a time.”
According to its charter, the goals of the commission are to end discrimination against women within the city government and enhance the status of all the city`s women. Montes says she accepts small steps toward the goal of the commission.
She does not fault acting Mayor Eugene Sawyer for his failure to attend the commission`s annual meeting; on the contrary, she praises him for his motion to make the commission a permanent part of government in 1987, which she considers the most significant achievement in the group`s five-year history. One of the commission`s chief activities last year was marching against apartheid in South Africa.
The commission was created by executive order of the late Mayor Harold Washington in 1984. Montes, a former public school teacher and counselor who was active in volunteer groups before taking this post, recalls that Washington created the commission to reward the women who had supported him in his mayoral campaign.
”Women had never asked for anything back from the men they helped win elections,” Montes said. ”This time, when we worked for Washington, we said we wanted something for ourselves. We felt it was important when you looked at the way women were discriminated against in government, at how few women were in high administrative positions or in deputy positions.”
Ironically, because of Washington`s squabbles with the City Council, the commission didn`t become a permanent part of city government until after his death. It was officially recognized in late 1987 and renamed the Chicago Commission on Women. The number of commissioners was cut from 33 to 21. Commissioners now are appointed by the mayor to serve one-, two-, or three-year terms and are unpaid.
Those changes have helped focus the commission and vastly strengthened its position within the city, say women from area women`s organizations. Montes now presides over a staff of 10-double what it was in 1985-and an annual budget of $329,000.
So far in its five-year history, the commission can take credit for some symbolic as well as real progress. In the symbolic category, it has promoted recognition of Women`s History Month in March and recognized the contributions of women through its annual Unsung Heroines and Women`s Hall of Fame awards.
Its accomplishments include a nontraditional jobs program for women that is the first of its kind in the nation. The commission found applicants for jobs in eight traditionally male departments-in Streets and Sanitation and the Water Department, among others. In a related program, the number of female applicants for Fire Department positions increased from 176 to 4,145 in two years owing to commission recruitment.
The commission`s Economic Development Committee-led by Susan Dunlap, executive director of the Midwest Women`s Center, a not-for-profit information and employment training center-has been an advocate to the city for women-owned businesses. The committee, according to its figures, showed more than 3,300 businesswomen seeking city contracts the way to technical assistance, consultation or referral with the appropriate agencies.
In 1985, the commission published the city`s first directory of women-owned businesses in Chicago, a task now handled by the Midwest Women`s Center. The commission monitors the city`s affirmative action effort.
Much of the commission`s work consists of small individual efforts-in many cases, little more than a phone call to the right insider. Montes said the commission gets about 60 calls a month for aid of all types. ”When I get on the phone, things do happen,” she says.
Leaders of other women`s organizations in the city say the commission`s inside line to officials is its best asset. Says Elaine Weiss, president of the Illinois Women`s Agenda, a statewide coalition of 80 women`s
organizations: ”I think the most important role they serve is that of keeping the variety of women`s issues in front of the mayor and city administrators. They have access and information that might not come out to groups like ours.”
Susanna Purrington, director of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women, believes that the commission`s inside line to city government bodes well for women in the private sector as well. ”I think by being visible and by going after city departments to do business with private women contractors, the effect trickles out to the private sector. If the city demands (that they) deal with women, then those suppliers have to have affirmative-action policies.”
While the commission`s work has not been startling, its existence has given women a voice in city government.
When asked what the most important thing the commission could do in the next five years was, Montes replies without hesitation: ”This is a dream: In the next five years, we would like to completely eradicate discrimination against women in all sectors of the city.”
