New book focuses on women in politics

IT TAKES A WOMAN: Women Shaping Public Policy, by Melissa MacCrae, Goddess Publications, Brewer, 1999, 93 pages, $12.

In a state where Margaret Chase Smith is a legend and where both current U.S. senators are female, it’s easy to take for granted that women can be elected to public office.

Melissa MacCrae doesn’t do that for a minute.

The author of “It Takes a Woman: Women Shaping Public Policy” points to an overwhelming disparity: 52 percent of the country’s registered voters are women, but just 9 percent of current U.S. senators, 12.9 percent of the U.S. House, 23 percent of state representatives and 18 percent of state senators are female.

More than half the states have no woman representatives in either house of Congress.

Maine women, of course, have done their part in both elected office and in other venues.

It is fascinating to see mention of Hadassah Soule Herrick, the Harmony woman who bequeathed her $2,000 estate in 1903 to the Maine Woman Suffrage Association — later the League of Women Voters of Maine; of Molly Dewson, who led the Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee after working for President Franklin Roosevelt; of novelist Sally Barrell Keating Wood; and of midwife Martha Ballard.

Separate chapters are devoted to Libby Mitchell, Chellie Pingree, Susan Collins and the late Margaret Chase Smith.

The first election for Mitchell, who later became the first woman speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, was in 1974 — just before she delivered her son, Charlie, who now fills that same House seat. Daughter Elizabeth also has served in the House.

“Mitchell says women seem to excel in `bringing people to the table to find the common ground,”‘ MacCrae pointed out.

Pingree had to nurture her own conciliatory abilities to find her place in the island community of North Haven. Once refused a volunteer opportunity by the school board, she eventually was accepted and wound up as chairman of the board herself. She also became the largest employer of women on the island.

Pingree remembers how intimidating it was to run her first Senate race against a businessman who fit the common image of a politician.

“He looks like a senator,” she remembered thinking. “Then I looked at myself — I’m too short, I’m too young, I’m a woman. What do I know? I just wanted to run away.”

Now majority leader of the Senate, Pingree clearly has other ideas about what a public servant can look like.

Collins, the daughter of two parents who both served as mayor of Caribou, knows that beliefs about a woman holding elective office take stronger root when planted early.

So she makes time to visit pupils when she’s in her home state. After all, she found her own inspiration in a visit with Margaret Chase Smith some years ago.

“I remember feeling so proud that she was my senator,” she told MacCrae, “and also thinking that women can do anything.”

The first woman to be nominated for president, Smith is also justly remembered for her 1950 “Declaration of Conscience” speech decrying McCarthyism.

“Conscience is what makes men and women speak up when they know that in doing so they are going to make themselves unpopular,” Smith said before she died in 1995. “Conscience is outspoken recognition that the right way is not always the easy and popular way.”

In addition to these profiles, MacCrae offers commentary on women’s lack of political participation, a survey of their participation and views on leadership, and a list of resources. The slim volume would make a good subject for a discussion group.

Not everyone is destined for public office, but MacCrae’s work may well prompt readers to ponder, “What is my part? What is there for me to do to contribute to my community and its public policy?”

If a goodly portion of those ponderers were women, MacCrae would be well pleased.

Melissa MacCrae will hold a book signing for “It Takes a Woman” from 3 to 4 p.m. today at Borders in Bangor. She’ll also sign books from noon to Moon Cafe in Bangor.