Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 3, 1990 TAG: 9003032684
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Eleanor Smeal was still president of the National Organization for Women then. The nation's largest feminist organization, NOW's membership had increased seven-fold and its budget had climbed from $500,000 to $10 million during her seven-year administration.
And there Smeal was, standing in the shower, rehashing all the battles she'd been fighting for the past two decades - 10 of those years spent actively leading the Equal Rights Amendment movement.
How did the ERA end up? Three states shy of ratification.
What had gone wrong? Smeal had spent frantic, sleepless weeks in statehouses across the country. She had spent years lobbying officials. Yet her efforts had failed.
Then the enormity of her naivete struck: More than 90 percent of those state legislators she had hounded were men. She realized that all the changes she'd been fighting for - ERA, child care, pay equity, reproductive rights - would never occur unless more women were at the decision-making table.
The term "5 percent" became her motto - the percentage of U.S. Congresswomen in office.
Smeal figured that at the current rate of growth, it will take until the year 2333 for women to constitute 50 percent of Congress.
As she puts it, she decided to "jump-start history."
Smeal founded the Fund for the Feminist Majority. Based in Washington, the group is a non-membership organization whose primary goals are to research women's issues and encourage women to become business and government leaders.
Smeal's campaign is called "The Feminization of Power," a personal crusade that is putting her behind microphones across the country.
She spoke to a group of about 150 Hollins College students Thursday night. She begged them to get involved and to care about women's issues. She begged them to strive for the top - and to change the rules along the way.
"I don't think women are morally better than men," she told the group. "But I do think that because of our experiences, we walk more with the sick, poor and elderly.
"I have lobbied and lobbied male decision-makers, and I know that there have to be more women in there to break up the stag atmosphere.
"We shouldn't have to beg anymore."
To call Eleanor Smeal an inspirational speaker is like saying Ronald Reagan is a decent cue-card reader. At the end of her 1 1/2-hour Hollins lecture, there is a bone-chilling pause. Some audience members are moved to tears - and then a standing ovation.
Smeal spends most of an interview Thursday afternoon walking around the room, gesturing expansively as she talks - and getting madder and madder.
Why is Eleanor Smeal so thoroughly ticked off?
Oh, she loves to tell you why. So she brings out her charts, her statistics, her polls and her graphs. And she lays it out in no uncertain terms:
Of all the chief executive officers heading Fortune 500 companies, four are women. And only one - The Washington Post's Katharine Graham - is both CEO and chairman of the board.
Some 275 are sons or grandsons of former CEOs. "Do these fellows have no daughters?" Smeal wants to know.
She brings out the 1986 figures for boards of directors and officers in the nation's top 50 companies.
"Look at AT&T," she says. "That company is run by women at the bottom; who in the world are telephone operators? And why in the world did they have no officers in '86 and probably have very few now, too?
"And let's look at Philip Morris sitting there with his Virginia Slims' `You've come a long way, baby.' What the hell's wrong with them?" In 1986, they had no women officers.
If women continue to enter upper management at the current rate, it will take 400 years for the scales to be balanced by gender, she says.
In state legislatures, if trends continue, the scale won't be balanced until 2038. Women now constitute 17 percent of state representatives, 10 percent of state senators.
Nationally, 30 women serve in the U.S. Congress - two Senators and 28 representatives. It is a body comprised of "almost 100-percent lawyers, principally white males," Smeal says.
"Lawyers on the scientific study committees, not scientists. Lawyers on the welfare committee, not social workers.
"And on the health-care committee, the same thing. Nurses are 97-percent female. Shouldn't there be a nurse sitting at that table?"
So how do you jump-start history? Smeal couldn't wait to tell the Hollins College students how.
The key, she says, is to explode the myths - No. 1 being that family responsibility is what keeps women from reaching the top.
Of all women executives polled, only 3 percent said family responsibilities slowed them down. The vast majority said that sex discrimination was the culprit - not having children.
And the Mommy Track, the theory that social scientists couldn't quit talking about last year? The one that said women who have children should pursue a slower track? Smeal has a lot to say about the Mommy Track:
"Hey, you'd better take a faster track if you're a mother because you're gonna need more money. . . . And in fact, if you're in a higher position, you have more flexible hours anyway.
"Would one suggest that a cleaning lady have a Mommy Track? Of course not. The Mommy Track is suggested for lawyers and businesswomen. Why? It's a way men can reduce the competition."
Another of Smeal's favorite myths is that women are costlier employees than men - mainly because they have babies. She can argue that myth into a corner any day:
Yes, women do have babies. But what do men have?
Drinking is a male-related illness: 45 percent of men versus 18 percent of women are heavy drinkers, more than a 2 to 1 ratio.
"How many maternity leaves could Exxon have funded with the billions of dollars that were lost because the captain of the Valdez was drunk?"
And males have 80 percent of all heart attacks, usually between ages 45 and 55.
"We're not saying don't hire men because they might have a heart attack at 45, but don't you dare say to us that you can't hire us because we might have a baby at 35." 2 1 SMEAL Smeal
Smeal is trying to teach arguments like these to today's young women.
"We want women to understand the tricks in the reasoning," she says. "We want them to switch them around.
"The first thing you must do is change your brain set. . . . If you act like a doormat, then people will walk on you."
If women are to move ahead, Smeal believes they must challenge the power structure, individually and in groups.
"We're in law schools because we sued every law school to stop the sex discrimination and the quota systems they used to keep us out. Fighting does make a difference - not only for you, but for the women behind you.
"Most of the gains we have won are because women have sued, picketed or demonstrated."
Two other key strategies she suggests: reporting sex harassment on the job, and buying products only from companies that have women in top leadership positions.
Smeal has been leading the fight to put history on fast-forward for only two years. Already, she says, she is seeing results.
Right now, 12 women are running for governorships - the most ever.
After one of Smeal's talks at Penn State, a pre-med student ran for student-body present and won. Same thing happened at Duke University, where a woman heard Smeal's speech and ran successfully for a seat on the Board of Trustees.
Last week, Smeal gave her spiel to a group of woman lawyers in Tennessee. After the talk, one of the women decided to seek judgeship at the appellate level there.
Yet Smeal, a 50-year-old former housewife, just keeps getting madder and madder.
Will she ever give up? You be the judge:
At the end of her talk at Hollins, a student brings up the issue of birth control - why new forms are not being introduced in this country, and why access is limited worldwide.
"Talk about no birth control. In Africa, crude methods of abortion is the only birth control. Women stick sticks up themselves because they've already had eight children. They don't even have hangers in Africa.
"It's disgusting and it's revolting, and this is what makes me tick. I can't stand it.
"And we need to be there - we need to be at the decision-making tables - to have a heart. Because women are the ones who are gonna care about these kinds of problems."
by CNB