The Problem with a Name: Female Politicians and the Glass Ceiling

By Denechia Powell

Every woman dreads the clear menace. It kills dreams and crushes hopes. It is the infamous glass ceiling, a term first introduced to popular culture in a 1986 Wall Street Journal article. Today, almost any media consumer knows the glass ceiling refers to an invisible barrier that hinders women from advancement in traditionally patriarchal fields. It became a buzzword in this year’s historical presidential race, with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s pant suits and Gov. Sarah Palin’s alleged $150,000 wardrobe gracing our television screens on a daily basis. Athens-Clarke County’s female politicians watched closely as Clinton contended she left “18 million cracks” in the “highest, hardest glass ceiling in America” during her concession speech and Palin claimed she would shatter that same glass ceiling “once and for all” at a stump speech in Dayton, Ohio.

While the nation’s lens is not focused upon Athens, its female politicians still identify with Clinton and Palin’s struggles in a man’s world. Although its reputation as one of the most progressive cities in Georgia usually holds true, women are still underrepresented in Athens’ political sphere. Estelle B. Freedman, a feminist studies professor at Stanford University, said the legacy of men’s monopoly on political office and the slowly changing attitudes of men and women in their voting habits both contribute to the low number of women in politics. She also cites entrenched male networks and serving double duty as caregivers and politicians as obstacles for women who seek office. But do Freedman’s beliefs hold true for Athens-Clarke County’s female politicians? Are they still fighting against the clear menace or have they knocked down every barrier in local politics?

Athens’ first female mayor, Gwen O’Looney, is a pioneer in local politics. As a member of the Athens City Council from 1985 to 1991, she pushed for the unification of the city of Athens and Clarke County governments. Her efforts paid off when voters passed a referendum to unify the two governments in 1990, and Athens-Clarke County became one of the only consolidated city-counties in the country. O’Looney believed she was the right person to oversee the new government in the role of chief elected officer (a title now known as mayor). When she first contemplated running for ACC’s highest office, she called around town to hear what people thought of her idea. She remembers a conversation with H. Randolph Holder, an influential community leader and the president of Clarke Broadcasting.

“He told me he held a meeting at the radio station, and it was decided that neither a black or a woman could win,” O’Looney said. “Well, there wasn’t a black or a woman at the meeting.”

Ignoring naysayers, O’Looney embarked on her campaign. She feels her opponents “bent over backwards” to not insult her and thinks her gender may have played in her favor, lending her more visibility than the other candidates. However, her gender also made her more vulnerable to the media. After participating in her first debate, the local newspaper wrote O’Looney “bragged” about her background, reserving the verb only for her and none of her male contenders.

“I had worked very hard in how to present my background, and I didn’t think it was boastful,” she said. She believes her speech was “normal and appropriate” and that the reporting of the story was chauvinistic. O’Looney ultimately triumphed, serving two terms as the head of the ACC Commission from 1991 to 1998. She still did not escape the criticism of her mother, who thought women in politics were “unladylike.”

Kathy Hoard also served on the Athens City Council with O’Looney in the 1980s and is currently serving her second term as the District 7 commissioner for ACC. She remembers very few incidents of gender discrimination during her long involvement in Athens politics, but one that occurred in the early 1980s still lingers in her mind. Campaigning door-to-door for Nancy Denson, the first woman to serve on the Athens City Council and ACC’s county tax commissioner for 23 years, a man answered her knock, glanced over Denson’s brochure and handed it back to her. After seeing the brochure, the man made a swift conclusion.

“He said she should not be running and that she should be at home looking after her husband and children and so should I,” said 57-year-old Hoard, who is married with no children.

Because of women like O’Looney, Hoard and Denson who bravely navigated the male-dominated realm of Athens politics in the 1980s, District 4 Commissioner Alice Kinman, 46, never expected her gender to be a hindrance while campaigning or while serving in office. “If anything makes me aware of gender, it’s finding myself so often in a room where I’m the only woman,” she said. Mayor Heidi Davison, who currently leads the 10-member commission in which only two commissioners are female, has taken note of men’s sexist actions during her two terms as mayor.

“Observations I have made are that men will defer to other men in conversation at meetings, wave off comments by a woman or ignore women if men of ‘higher’ office are also present,” Davison said in an e-mail interview. However, she generally only sees this type of behavior in older men who do not have much experience with women in leadership positions.

Jane Kidd felt she had to go above and beyond men of all ages when she represented the Athens area, District 115, in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2005 to 2006. She said the state legislature has been dominated by men for so long that they only gravitate toward each other.

“They have fundraisers, golf tournaments with lobbyists and other functions just for men,” Kidd said. “You have to confront the Good Ol’ Boys Club every time you want to get something done.” She decided it was time for confrontation in 2006, when she sought the state Senate seat for the 46th District, which covers Oconee County and portions of Clarke and Walton counties. Along with other Georgia Democrats, she felt it was unfair when her district was redrawn to favor the Republican candidate. She lost the race, but not without first pleading her case in state and federal courts. Kidd remembers being portrayed as “whiney” by Internet blogs and does not believe they would have judged a male in a similar fashion.

Gender is not the only elephant in the room when it comes to politics. Like all serious political candidates, local attorney Sherry Jackson sent out campaign brochures before her election this year. Jackson hoped to unseat Bill Cowsert, the Republican state senator of Georgia’s 46th District (the seat Kidd ran for two years ago). The rookie politician ultimately lost the race, but she does not attribute her loss to her gender. However, she said she would not be surprised if her race played a factor in her loss, and she is uncertain if people knew she was black before sending out her mailers. She knows that racist attitudes still persist in the South, but has no way of gauging whether or not her race impacted her campaign.

“Bill is a likable guy. Who knows? We were both equally qualified,” she said.

When Hoard, who is white, first ran for the Athens City Council in 1984, she felt she might encounter resistance because of her race. She knew the district she hoped to represent was 50 percent black and was concerned her race would negatively affect her campaign. Hoard thought the district’s constituency would call for a black person to represent them, but no black candidates ever came forward. She feels the color of her skin did not become an issue because people of all races respected her efforts in reaching out to their community.

“They were just happy to see a person at the door asking them what they thought was important,” Hoard said.

Kinman was first elected to the ACC Commission in 2004 as one of its youngest members, but it was the man she beat for the office who gained attention for his youthfulness. Local publications took interest in her 21-year-old opponent, Blake Tillery, and she remembers newspapers focusing on his unusually young age. Tillery was a serious opponent who brought out the youth vote. When Kinman found herself with Tillery at campaign events, the college student consistently referred to her as “Mrs. Kinman.” Kinman never took her husband’s last name (“Mrs. Kinman is my mother,” she said), so she asked him to call her either Alice, Ms. Kinman or even Dr. Kinman (she holds a Ph.D. in English). Nevertheless, Tillery continued to address her as Mrs. Kinman.

“I didn’t know if he was doing it deliberately or not. It seemed to me a way to cast me as older,” she said.

Kinman is the only woman on the commission with children (two daughters). She finds that being a local politician fits well with her other roles as a wife, a mother and an academic. Currently, she works part-time as an academic advisor in the Franklin College at the University of Georgia, so she can greet her 11-year-old daughter after school each day. Her husband watches their daughter when she attends commission meetings at night.

“Being a commissioner doesn’t take away from my family life,” she said. “I’m going down the street to vote, not Atlanta or Washington, D.C.” As a mother, it disturbed Kinman when some media outlets suggested Palin should not run for vice president because she belonged at home with her five children. She believes the fact Palin had a newborn child intensified outcries.

Davison recognizes that traditionally female roles, such as caregiver, still persist in our society. “Women are expected to raise children and men to be the breadwinners… the idea of a man staying home with children while women work or assume leadership positions is still a new concept.”

Kidd believes women’s desires to be closely involved in their children’s youngest years keeps many young women out of the political arena. She did not seek state office until both of her children were out of high school. Kidd feels it is easier for mothers to run for office at a local level than in state and national elections because they are less scrutinized, and she knows a thing or two about the relationship between politics and families. As the daughter of the late former Georgia Gov. S. Ernest Vandiver and the grandniece of the late U.S. Sen. Richard B. Russell, she learned the honor and value of public service at an early age. Her familiarity with the political process has given her the confidence to run for many elected positions, and she is currently the chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia.

She personally encourages fellow women to seek office and said she was one of the main people to ask Jackson to run for state Senate.

“The number one reason women don’t run is because nobody asks them to run,” Kidd said. She cites the pro-choice, Democratic political action committee, EMILY’s list (which stands for Early Money Is Like Yeast) and the nonpartisan nonprofit, The White House Project, as two organizations working to elect more females to public office. Davison thinks the number of women in political power will only increase in the future. “As more and more women fill positions of leadership and generational attitudes change, we will continue to see a rise in participation from women in elected office as well as other positions of leadership.”

Most of Athens-Clarke County’s women politicians agree the local government broke free of the clear menace with the election of O’Looney to its highest office in 1990. A 1998 article in the Red & Black cited O’Looney as the first head of a unified government to ever be re-elected.

“I definitely think I broke the glass ceiling because I was successful,” O’Looney said. Her role as an innovator who was not afraid of initiating changes made ACC more open to females in positions of political power. Hoard feels opportunities for women in Athens politics are “limitless.” However, Athens’ female politicians anxiously await further progress for women in state and national politics. Georgia has yet to elect a female governor or even a female lieutenant governor. As of January 2009, the U.S. Senate will have only 17 females out of 100 members, and women will occupy only 74 out of 435 seats in the U.S. House. While it is clear the glass ceiling on every political level has not been completely shattered, thanks to courageous women such as Senator Clinton, “the light is shining through it like never before.”