These signs of progress were all very exciting to the Yuppie women who work in the media, staff the Congress and stand forth for the activist groups. But they don’t mean as much to the ordinary women who must cope with the everyday challenge of raising a family while earning a living. It was ‘his group, more than any other. that brought Zoe Baird down.
The Washington establishment was ready to give Baird a pass. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chastened by its embarrassment over the Clarence Thomas hearings a year ago, would have approved Baird’s nomination-but for the storm rising over the airwaves and phone lines around the country. The women’s groups, for the most part, stood by on the sidelines. “You hate to see a woman screw up,” said Democratic activist Patricia Derian. On the other hand, corporate lawyer Baird, whose resume is notably lacking in public service, left most activists cold. The real opposition came from around the kitchen tables and water coolers of America. “It was the people in the steno pool who did her in,” says Ralph Whitehead, a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts.
Working women who must struggle to find affordable day care did not buy Baird’s excuse. The Aetna Life and Casualty general counsel tried to argue that she was putting her child first when she hired undocumented workers and failed to pay their social-security taxes. But most women, who manage to pay for day care on modest incomes and still do it legally, looked at her half-million-dollar salary and figured she was just chiseling the taxpayer. “It smelled to me like here’s somebody who could very well afford anything, and she’s cheaping out of it,” said Elsa Peterson, 43, a nurse, to The Washington Post. It’s true enough that Baird was the victim of a double standard. If she was the victim of class anger, why did Ron Brown, a business-as-usual lobbyist, sail through his confirmation hearings to be secretary of commerce? Brown was not caught breaking any laws, unlike Baird. But he is every bit as much a symbol of special privilege for the elite. Would a man have been given this hard a time over a child-care issue? Probably not. (Baird’s husband, Paul Gewirtz, a noted Yale Law School professor, may find out if he is ever nominated for a federal judgeship.) Still, it grated on women of all classes to see Baird use motherhood as a defense. “Women shouldn’t be seeking special treatment,” says Harriet Woods, president of the National Women’s Political Caucus.
Ironically, Baird’s showy demise overshadowed the real news for women banging at the gates: the announcement that Hillary Rodham Clinton would move into the West Wing and oversee the Clinton administration’s plan to reform health care. Health-care reform is the biggest challenge faced by the new administration, and moving the First Lady from her usual quarters in the East Wing to the West Wing-where the real decisions are made-is not just breaking a glass ceiling but knocking down a thick wall. The move is not surprising to Bill Clinton watchers, who have long known his dependence on his wife. A veteran of Clinton’s campaign as well as a skilled lobbyist for him in Arkansas, Hillary is better organized and in some ways tougher.
Clinton is not the first president to turn to a close relation for advice and counsel; Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy spent far more time in the Oval Office than any other member of John F. Kennedy’s cabinet. But Mrs. Clinton’s new responsibility will stir up more “who elected her?” headlines and male angst. Will having the president’s wife in charge of health care inhibit debate? How will Al Gore handle it? (A White House announcer, in a Freudian slip, began to introduce Hillary as vice president last week.) The Lady Macbeth stories will inevitably occur, but there are signs of refreshing change. Last week the crusty Wall Street Journal praised Hillary’s new role, noting that GOP powerwives Lynne Cheney and Wendy Gramm could be the beneficiaries should their husbands (former defense secretary Dick Cheney and Texas Sen. Phil Gramm) make it to the Oval Office.
Women’s groups will be watching to see whether Clinton keeps his pledge to diversity when he picks another attorney general. But does it really matter? Last week Clinton signed five executive orders that lift various Reagan-Bush bans on abortion counseling, fetal-tissue testing and the importation of RU-486, the French morning-after pill, for testing. Many women will feel the impact of those actions long after the symbolism of a first-woman appointment. Many more would be happy just to have the federal government help them find adequate and affordable child care. For most women the test of progress is not whether one of their own makes it to the top. It is whether the people at the top-men or women-respond to real needs.
