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THE OTHER ANGLE. Sam's quite right that you can read the mid-term election outcome in several different ways, as Clara Bingham proves in her excellent, just-posted Washington Monthly article, "Queens of the Hill," which provides the contrary view to Ryan Lizza's piece on the new manly-man Dems:
what truly marks the 2006 midterms as a watershed for women in politics is the astounding degree to which women in both the House and Senate are now moving up into positions of power, in the leadership and at the head of key committees and subcommittees. Democratic women appear finally to have broken through what Pelosi calls the �marble ceiling.� Women will not just be represented in the new Congress�to a remarkable extent, they will be running the place....What will women do with this hard-won power? After 12 years in the wilderness, Democrats are again in a position to champion women�s issues. Their ability to do so has improved immeasurably since 1994, and their intentions are clear. Slaughter has made a point of stacking the deck of the Rules committee with pro-choice Democrats. Sen. Murray�s list of priorities read like a feminist�s dream: invest in women�s health care, help victims of domestic violence, protect women in retirement. Yet many so-called �women�s issues� of the 1990s�health care, child care, education, and the minimum wage�have become mainstream Democratic concerns in the intervening years. Causes that protect women�s economic and social equality�championed by old-timer feminists like Schroeder since the 1970s�will no longer be pigeonholed as special interests. And unlike Chase, Smith or Schroeder, the new women leaders have not been required to choose between feminism and power. Pelosi�s new agenda is family-oriented, and she has shown no signs of shying away from women�s priorities. Democratic lawmakers have an additional interest in paying special attention to issues important to women: They owe them their electoral success. Women voters make up an increasingly large majority of Democratic voters nationwide, and helped decide the two elections that propelled Democrats into the Senate majority. In Virginia, 55 percent of women voted for Jim Webb (compared to just 45 percent of men), while in Montana, the other Senate squeaker, 52 percent of women supported Jon Tester, compared to 48 percent of men. �The Democrats are in power because women voters came out in historic numbers and elected these Democratic candidates because of their issues,� says Ellen Malcolm, president of EMILY�s List, a political action committee that works to elect pro-choice Democratic women to office. All those factors mean it�s likely that issues important to women won�t be neglected over the next two years.I guess it's possible for the so-called macho Dems to take issue with this agenda, but since most of them owe their seats to women voters, I wouldn't expect there to be all that much of a backlash.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
