(Published May 19, 2002, in the Montana Missoulian)
When Massachusetts' acting Gov. Jane Swift withdrew from the race for re-election earlier this year, she became part of a disturbing trend. Swift joins four other women governors who were so low in the polls by the end of their first term that they were losing in the primary against men from their own party.
There are only five states with women governors - the most ever at one time. The Center for American Women in Politics tracks data about women governors and a few trends have surfaced. Women tend to win in open seats, meaning they have little success in races against incumbents. Once in office, women governors tend not to get re-elected. Ironically, the power of incumbency does not attach to women.
Certain sectors flat out won't vote for a woman governor. A poll conducted by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation found that seniors, blue-collar men and women who are homemakers admit a bias against women in executive positions like governor. What's odd is that those of us willing to vote for a woman governor set about picking her apart the minute she's inaugurated. The governor's office bestows a stature on men that women have to earn. Few do.
It starts with nagging doubts about whether she's qualified. Montana Gov. Judy Martz's political and business experience is often belittled. In fact, her four years as lieutenant governor add up to more political experience than Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had combined when they were elected governors.
Joan Finney was the state treasurer of Kansas for 16 years before she was elected governor in 1990. In the Wichita Eagle, her critics claimed that her "fuzzy grasp of the issues and lack of leadership threatened to damage the state." These attitudes are consistent with the Lee Foundation's finding that voters project more experience and knowledge onto men who have the same background as women.
Remember the prediction that once women gained the same experience as men, they would rise to positions of power? Gov. Swift sprinted through the political pipeline: Elected to the state Senate in her 20s, she rose to a leadership position in the legislature, then ran a state agency and a division of the port authority before being elected lieutenant governor and finally succeeding to the governor's office. Here's how the Wall Street Journal disparaged her credentials: "(Swift is) a political neophyte widely seen as not ready for the top job." One wonders what type of experience would make a woman ready for the top job.
Being governor is a difficult and demanding job; every governor has successes and failures. But once we convince ourselves that a woman is in over her head, every problem - no matter how small - can be seen as further proof she's not executive material.
Gov. Martz's missteps and impolitic statements have caused her approval ratings to plunge. George W. Bush's tenure as governor of Texas was marked by wrong moves and blunders, yet people still liked him and his approval ratings were high.
Some theorize that women haven't caught up with men in knowing how to cover-up and spin away their problems. Think Bill Clinton dispatching Vernon Jordan to clean up his messes.
The national media lavished attention on Gov. Swift's gaffes and miscues. One insider described the scandal mongering around Swift as reaching "a lunatic level." She faced numerous ethics charges and even a legal action claiming she was unfit to do the job. London's business and political magazine, the Economist, saw this "string of scandals" for what it was: "Some of these things, done by a man, might have been more easily forgiven. ... But Massachusetts, despite its liberal reputation, has trouble with women in high office."
The constant undermining fed on itself to the point where Swift was taunted as "Jane Err" and "Not so Swift." After a parallel chain of events in Montana, letters-to-the-editor now deride Gov. Martz as a "national joke" and an "incompetent know-nothing."
Our treatment of women governors is eerily similar. The scholarly explanation for this behavior, provided by academics Sue Freeman and Susan Bourque in Women on Power, is that women who "occupy male-dominated leadership positions are apt to be evaluated negatively in light of the gender role incongruency."
I prefer James Carville's typically candid explanation. When asked to explain the resistance to Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate race in Susan Estrich's book Sex & Power, Carville replied, "There are some people who don't like ambitious women and they ain't going to vote for her."
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