Women: Tyros and Tokens

History resounds with their names.

The biblical Deborah, who led the Israelites to victory against the Canaanites. The Byzantine Empress Theodora, who inspired most of the important legislation of Justinian's reign. Catherine the Great of Russia, who had skills--and drives--as prodigious as her legendary predecessor Peter. From Nefertiti, the Maid of Orleans and Elizabeth I down to modern times, women leaders have left their mark. The 1970s alone have seen no fewer than four female heads of state: Israel's Golda Meir, India's Indira Gandhi, Sri Lanka's Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Argentina's Isabelita Peron, who took over the presidency last week on the death of her husband.

These are clearly the exceptions, however, and extremely rare ones at that. Historically, male-dominated societies have been willing enough to accept female monarchs who came to power by succession as well as women of great charisma or excellent family connections. But more often men have been reluctant to regard women as equals, much less as superiors. According to Betty Friedan, whose book The Feminine Mystique established her as the founding mother of women's liberation in the U.S.: "Women have made amazing progress. But they are hardly present in any numbers as leaders."

The past decade has drastically changed the image many women have of themselves (as well as the image many men have of them). But the revolution in the real status of women is only beginning. "There are plenty of token women around, but none in top leadership roles," says Rita Hauser, former U.S. representative to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. "Younger women very much want to break through and I think they will, but we won't see the results until ten years from now."

The statistics bear her out. Among first-year medical students three years ago, 13.5% were women compared with 10% in 1967. Such prestigious law schools as Harvard's now accept about twice as many women as they did in the mid-1960s. But as yet only 7% of the doctors, 3% of the lawyers and 4% of the 35,000 architects in the U.S. are women.

In politics, women have thus far made only small advances, however well publicized. This fall 108 women will be running for Congress (up 74% from 1970), nearly 700 for state legislatures, a dozen for Lieutenant Governor and ten for Governor. But now there are only 16 women in the House of Representatives and not a single one in the Senate. There are no women Governors and only four ambassadors. Among 18,500 American towns and cities, only some 30 are led by women mayors, while a mere 6% of state legislators are women.

In business, women rarely rise above middle management. A FORTUNE survey of 1,220 large American corporations revealed in 1972 that men outnumbered women at the top board-member and officer levels by a staggering 600 to 1. Less than 10% of the full professors on all U.S. campuses are women. "There are spotty examples of emerging women leaders," sums up Heather Booth, a civil rights activist from Illinois, "but it is not clear whether they are the tip of the iceberg or all of the ice."

Worldwide the situation is not much different. Finland leads Europe in the numbers of highly placed women, with Sweden a fairly distant second, but Britain and France are not progressing toward sexual parity any faster than the U.S. There are far more women than men in medicine in the Soviet Union, on the other hand, while 37% of the country's lawyers and 32% of its engineers are female.

Significant progress is also being made in Asia, where women have traditionally had low status. In Japan, a fast-growing feminist movement and a sex-blind college-admissions policy are propelling women into politics and business at high levels. In China, sex discrimination is officially considered a reactionary remnant. Though Mao's wife Chiang Ching is the only woman among the 20 regular members of the Politburo, Peking's highest ruling body, a more impressive 40 women belong to the 309-member Central Committee of the Communist Party.

While discrimination by males has a great deal to do with the small number of women leaders, women's concept of themselves may also be a significant obstacle. Psychologist Matina Homer, now president of Radcliffe College, found a fear among college women that professional advance can come only at the expense of femininity. To Cynthia Fuchs Epstein of Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, what is most frightening is "the punishment" a woman suffers, because of the male-oriented values of society, if she achieves success.

Affluent white women show more ambivalence toward careers than do others. Horner has found that 29% of black female students are fearful compared with 88% of the whites. Explains

Epstein: "Black women have less agony of decision because they had to work --there was no choice."

Those women who do seek leadership positions run into obstacles that are either unknown to men or thrown up by men. Female politicians complain that they have a far harder time raising funds than their male counterparts; many of them favor public financing of campaigns. Says Jean Marie Maher, a political consultant in California, "While contributors might write a check for $500 or $1,000 for a man, if the candidate is a woman, they write a check for $100." A Harvard Business Review study shows that male executives are more apt to discipline women for minor infractions than men, go to far greater lengths to retain male employees, and tend to hire and promote male managers rather than females with virtually identical qualifications.

Among the most vexing problems is reconciling a career with the demands of motherhood. Susan Catania, 32, a Republican member of the Illinois house of representatives, takes her fifth daughter Amy to sessions of the state legislature and regularly repairs to a brand-new women's lounge to breastfeed the infant. Other women have solved family demands in somewhat less dramatic ways. Says Radcliffe's Horner:

"One morning my daughter said: 'It's not like you're my mommy any more.' Wow! I said I would wake her up when I came home and we would have an evening chat." Horner has since made a regular practice of it.

Many women avoid the problem by not having families at all. A study by Helen S. Astin published by the Russell Sage Foundation shows that only 55% of women holding doctorates have married, compared with 90% of other women in the same age group. Conversely, the conflict with family responsibilities keeps many women leaders from careers that might open the way to leadership roles. "It is too optimistic to think that women will not be held back by marriage," says Ida Lewis, black editor and publisher of the two-year-old magazine Encore. "They always will be."

Writer-Editor Midge Decter, whose book The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation enraged women's libbers, dissents: "A lot of women have not assumed roles as leaders because they are occupied elsewhere--with their homes or children, perhaps. They don't become leaders because they don't feel like it."

The fact remains that for those women who do seek leadership roles, the road often requires a degree of stamina and sustained brilliance not always demanded of men. Even those who have succeeded are concerned lest their own success prevent their sisters from moving up. Says Eleanor Holmes Norton, New York City's human rights commissioner: "I am the exception that sexists and racists would like to rely on." Norton, who is black, thus echoes the widely held concern that getting beyond tokenism may be the most difficult challenge yet. Indeed, few women's libbers believe that men are ready to tolerate complete equality.

Women have proved so far that the best of them can struggle to the top. What remains to be proved is that someone less than spectacular can do well.

Frances ("Sissy") Farenthold, 47, the then Texas legislator who came in second for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination in 1972, has this advice for women: "Stop worrying, as I did for a time, about being unqualified. Just look at how many incumbents are incompetent and unqualified." Only half in jest, she adds: "I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns and women join the unqualified men in running our Government."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.