And yet it could be worse.
Today, there are 151 women in Congress.
One-quarter of U.S. senators are women, and roughly 30 percent of lawmakers in the House.
Ellen Malcolm, founder of EMILY’s ListPaul Zimmerman/Getty Images
(The organization was officially founded two years later.)
Nobody took women candidates seriously.
They were caught in this vicious circle, she says.
Okay, fine, you smoke your cigar and look smart, and Ill starve to death.
Their solution was to start soliciting early donations for Democratic women running for office.
They called the group EMILYs List, an acronym for Early Money Is Like Yeast.
It helps the dough rise.)
This aint gonna happen, Malcolm says.
Just a few weeks shy of 78, Malcolm rarely does interviews.
Now we dont have to do this again.
No, no, no, no, she says.
It ebbs and flows… You make a big burst forward.
Then it gets slow.
That goes on for a while, and then you get another opportunity, and you burst forward.
There is agraphcharting the divergence between Democratic womens representation in Congress, and Republican womens.
The two lines, roughly even through 1992, sharply diverge after that point.
Its the image Malcolm says she wants engraved on her tombstone.
The ERA was a terrible loss, but it politicized a lot of women.
You have to have a long view if youre going to participate in social change.
You will burn out.
You will give up.
EMILYs List is a case study of that concept: Women were 5 percent of the Democratic caucus.
We are now 44 percent of the Democratic caucus.
But its not just about representation, she is quick to emphasize.
Its the changes to the agenda that have taken place because of the women we elected.
The whole legislative agenda has shifted because women are now considered important in politics.
The piece concluded, quotingBill ClintonandLindsey Graham:Maybe if its a Republican.
Malcolm, whose lifes work has been devoted to electing Democratic women, bristled at the implication.
Its why theyre going backwards.
(The sole woman in GOP leadership isRep.
She worked with rats.
It will go down the path, she says.
Its not a bad analogy for the position Democrats presently find themselves in.
But, Malcolm, for her part, is confident the party will find its way out.
Its not a time for the faint-hearted, and its not a time to give up.
