... And Ladies of the Club

By Jane O'Reilly

Women in Dallas showed signs of comfort, and discomfort

That careful collage of floral arrangements, good thoughts, party favors and salad known as the ladies' lunch has always been something of an art form among Republican women, or at least among those who seemed to dominate in Dallas last week. For certain circles, Nancy Reagan has transformed a sprinkling of fresh raspberries in a tart shell into something approaching the national food. Ballrooms were packed at lunchtime with women who described themselves as mainstream. At a Monday lunch given by Anti-ERA-Activist Phyllis Schlafly, Dorothy Kranhold, an alternate delegate from Danville, Calif, said, "It amazes me that people would think this is not a cross section of the American public." She waved an encompassing arm at the room full of overwhelmingly white, conservative, married women whose greatest mark of diversity was whether they wore silk or synthetic. They were not all rich, but they were, certainly, women who could afford a choice of life's options without worrying about child care or job training. Even so, the message that they delivered from the Dallas showcase in this, the year of women in politics, was decidedly mixed.

The idea that a concern for menus and hair styles can coexist comfortably with knowledge about the national debt and Nicaragua is a new one to many of the women who went to the convention, and the synthesis is as yet imperfect. At the Schlafly party, retired Lieut. General Daniel Graham's book on Star Wars defense systems, We Must Defend America, was a party favor, along with Texas-shaped cakes of soap. The main event of the afternoon was a fashion show in which the models included the wives of James Baker, Jack Kemp and Robert Michel. They were introduced by both their own name and their husband's name, and a notation of the number of children each had. The hit of the runway parade was a 3-ft.-tall mink elephant.

On Wednesday, at a lunch honoring Nancy Reagan, the piece de resistance of the convention's distaff side, Barbara Bush paid tribute to the First Lady's love of beauty: "The White House is sparkling these days, and the meals are superb." Reagan, in response, quoted Eleanor Roosevelt: "I have never wanted to be a man. I have often wanted to be effective as a woman. But I never thought that trousers would do the trick." The audience of about 1,800 women, virtually none of them in pants, applauded, as they had applauded reminders that the Republican Party had been the party of Susan B. Anthony and the drive for suffrage.

They also applauded (if somewhat more warily) Joan Rivers' suggestion that the Democrats "should have gone for Dolly Parton. They could have called it Fritz and Tits. They would have had three boobs in the White House." Among her other somewhat tasteless barbs: "A woman in the White House. Big deal. John F. Kennedy had a thousand of them." The only luncheon favor was a large button with the motto NANCY REAGAN, OUR LOVELY FIRST LADY. Joanne Van Zandt, a county legislator from Rochester, N.Y., lamented, "It is sort of too bad, in a year when we are trying to be deeper, that it doesn't mention the more important, substantive things about her." Nancy Reagan was the convention's belle ideale, gracious and, as Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler complimented her, "ex-officio member of the Cabinet Without Portfolio." Rosalynn Carter was pilloried for holding the same position.

Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole, pretty, married and powerful, seemed to inspire both awe and anxiety in the delegates. She summed up the mixed emotions of the women who gathered in Dallas: "Throughout our society today women have moved into fields of work once reserved for men. It's fascinating." But for the benefit of traditionalists, she added, "I continue to believe that the most important of careers and most challenging is that of homemaker and mother." Nancy Reagan also discussed this conflict that many women face when she was asked at a meeting with TIME editors whether she was a feminist. "I am not sure what a feminist is," she answered. "Different women want to do different things, and that should be up to them. I don't think they should be forced. If they want to stay home, fine. If they want to have a career and become a welder, fine." She insisted that while she acts as her husband's confidante, she does not advise him on policy matters.

Senator Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas said in Dallas: "Most men of either party don't know to deal with women. We have to get the novelty stage behind us." Kassebaum, who is pro-choice and pro-ERA, did not agree with the Republican platform and dismissed it as not widely read. However, a determined, disappointed Maine Congresswoman Olympia Snowe, whose efforts to introduce contemporary women's issues into the platform were coldly rebuffed, said: "If the platform doesn't mean anything, why do we bother? This one means a great deal to this party. It sets the tone and direction."

The 1984 Republican platform is, in some ways, more antifeminist than the 1980 one. It does not, for example, acknowledge that some Americans, including some Republicans, have differing views on abortion and the ERA. It repeats many of the themes of 1980, and those themes translated into policies. For example, the Reagan Administration has tried, as promised, to solve the problem of teen-age pregnancy by cutting funds for sex education and contraceptives and by creating programs that encourage teenage chastity. In 1980, conservatives promised to seek limitations on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which included funding for women's sports programs. The promise was fulfilled, and the goal was restated in this year's platform, even as delegates hailed female Olympians who directly benefited from Title IX.

Occasionally, across the baskets of rolls and the artichokes, delegates would confess to being a bit more moderate on abortion than the Administration--which opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest--and being disappointed at the omission from the platform of any kind of language supporting an Equal Rights Amendment. But those doubts were quietly voiced. Being polite is a root value for the Republican ladies who lunched in Dallas, and they left town with many of their personal and political conflicts unresolved. Some may have taken comfort, just as others surely took discomfort, from Joan Rivers' jest: "I don't do housework. That's the fun of being a Republican. You don't have to do housework." --By Jane O'Reilly