The Orbis

Issue date: 2/5/07 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Madeleine Fentress

"For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling," Rep. Pelosi, D-Calif., said after being inaugurated as the nation's first ever female Speaker of the House on Jan. 4. "For our daughters and our granddaughters now, the sky is the limit." But just how momentous was this election cycle for advancing women's political opportunities? And to what extent does Pelosi's inauguration represent a changing atmosphere for women in politics?

Pelosi's House consists of more female Representatives (71) than ever before in U.S. history. With Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., bringing the total number of female senators to 16, more women than ever before represent the American people at the national level.

Indeed, with the success of female candidates in the mid-term elections, it seems the electorate and our federal government have turned a new leaf in representational equality. Even with these record numbers, however, women account for just over 16 percent of our legislators, a number which puts the U.S. well behind countries like Rwanda and Iraq with 48.8 and 25.5 percent female legislators respectively.

Of course, numbers actually mean very little when it comes to determining how women live in a nation, but representation can say a lot about our nation's gender roles and its views of women as capable leaders.

Perhaps more telling than these new numbers and how they compare to other nations' is the language used to describe the most powerful woman in America's history, language that is coming from the left and the right.

In contrast to Pelosi's speech about the destruction of the "marble ceiling," Fox News ran a story during coverage of the inauguration about Rep. Jane Harman's, D-Calif., anger toward the new Speaker, after Pelosi failed to reappoint Harman as chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Fox belittled the power of the two women and the importance of their political conflict with gendered language, running the story with the headline, "Congress Catfight." When a political conflict between two of the nation's highest ranking officials is cast as a squabble between two harpies, one cannot help but question just how accepting our nation is of women in power.

Even before Pelosi took office, Dick Morris, a conservative pundit who is misleadingly labeled a "former Clinton advisor" by Fox News, appeared on "Hannity and Colmes" and explained that Pelosi refused to give Harman the position because she "doesn't want a female competition. She doesn't want two aggressive Democratic women congressmen in California." Of course, Pelosi could not possibly have made a controversial decision based on any substantive logic; rather, she is guilty of the typical, petty bickering so common among women.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools