The returns still are coming in, but many women active in politics are certain that the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings last October will bring a heavy turnout of funds and voters to the 1992 elections.
Organizations concerned with the role of women in government report an influx of members and financial contributions in the past few months. Leaders of those groups attribute that interest to the image of a black female law professor speaking out, while a panel of white males-the Senate Judiciary Committee-looked on with expressions ranging from befuddlement to hostility.
Evidently, those televison pictures of Anita Hill and the overwhelmingly male voices that later droned their consent to Thomas` U.S. Supreme Court appointment struck a chord that continues to reverberate.
”When they called the roll in the Senate, you heard `Mr … Mr … Mr …` 52 times before a woman answered,” says Ellen R. Malcolm, president of EMILY`s List. That Washington, D.C.-based organization, an acronym for Early Money Is Like Yeast, raises money for pro-abortion Democratic women candidates. In 1990, it helped pull in $1.5 million for 14 gubernatorial and congressional candidates. In the past several weeks, Malcolm reports, membership has jumped 80 percent to 5,000, and she expects campaign contributions to double in 1992. ”Response (to the hearings) has just been spectacular,” she says.
In the Washington headquarters and regional branches of the National Organization for Women, 13,000 people signed up for $25 memberships in October and November-11,000 more than NOW usually recruits in a two-month period, bringing its membership to 250,000.
”The hearings seemed to demonstrate that women who testify before regulatory bodies are not listened to,” says Kim Gandy, a NOW vice president. ”That rang true to women at so many levels.”
During a recent international conference in Washington to celebrate NOW`s 25th anniversary, delegates from all over the globe snatched up the ”I Believe Anita Hill” buttons offered for sale. ”Women everywhere saw the
hearings as being typical of the way they`ve been treated,” Gandy says. `You must have asked for (sexual advances). You must be a whore.”`
When outraged new members asked what they could do, Gandy says she and her NOW colleagues told them, ”Put more women in office.”
A lot of women have been attempting to heed that advice. Early beneficiaries of unexpectedly high campaign contributions reportedly include Democratic Senate candidates Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein in California, Carol Moseley Braun in Illinois and Geraldine Ferraro and Elizabeth Holtzman in New York. Not to be outdone, Republican women have begun organizing an Emily`s List-style program of their own.
”The impact of the hearings made it clear that the issue wasn`t one of Republicans vs. Democrats; it was one of men vs. women,” declares Jane Danowitz, executive director of the pro-abortion, bipartisan Women`s Campaign Fund.
”Polls indicate that the best candidate today would most likely be a pro-choice, Republican woman,” Danowitz says. ”She would get a crossover vote from moderate Democrats if she`s conservative on economic policy and progressive on social issues.”
In just four days after the hearings, Women`s Campaign Fund received 800 phone calls and raised $20,000. Most contributions were small, individual gifts of $35 to $40 from women who said they had never made that kind of donation before, Danowitz says. Most were newcomers to any sort of women`s movement, she added, a characteristic noted by several other organizations.
”I don`t think any of us had judged the depth of the anger, disgust and dismay with the system that (Hill-Thomas) has unturned,” Danowitz says.
”There was a prevailing view among many of us that we could still rely on good men to protect us and take the lead on many of our issues, from child care to job equality. The hearings caused a profound change in that view. We saw men from both parties, who were presumed to be our leaders, paralyzed at a time when we needed them most.”
One sign of upheaval appeared in Minnesota, where a fledgling Democratic group had vowed to raise $1 million to support a woman candidate against GOP incumbent Sen. David Durenberger two years from now. Leaders of that group, the Minnesota Million, now believe they may reach their goal long before 1994. ”We were dormant right after the summer,” reports group co-chair Nina Rothchild, ”but after the Clarence Thomas hearings, it became clear that lots of people support the idea of trying to change the gender balance in the Senate.”
No one expects the makeup of the Senate to come anywhere near reflecting the country`s population any time soon.
”The hearings really have motivated some women to run and other women to help them,” says Harriett Woods, president of the National Women`s Political Caucus, a Washington, D.C., activist group. But she fears passions may cool a bit in the months ahead.
”It depends on whether anyone hits that hot button again,” she says.
”I don`t think victory in the fall is automatic. The energy will remain, but it may not all play out in 1992.”
To contact organizations:
– EMILY`s List, 202-887-1957
– Minnesota Million, 612-221-0441
– National Organization for Women, 202-331-0066
– National Women`s Political Caucus, 202-898-1100
– Women`s Campaign Fund, 202-234-3700.
