SHELBURNE FALLS — “It never occurred to me to run for office until I did,” said former state Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst, the first woman to become part of the western Massachusetts legislative delegation.
She began her nearly 25 years ago, campaigning for state representative when the country was riveted by the U.S. Senate judicial hearings in which Anita Hill had levied charges of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. People also saw the all-male panel of senators hearing the testimony – and wondered why there weren’t more women among them.
“In the year that I ran, the number of women in the Senate doubled – from two to four,” she said, getting a big laugh from the Shelburne Falls Area Women’s Club, where she spoke Wednesday night on “Local Women in Politics.”
Today, she said, there are 100 US senators and 23 are women. “That’s pretty typical. In Massachusetts, about one-fourth of the legislators are women. It’s gotten better over the years,” she pointed out. “But there are over 50 percent women” in the general population.
Story said about one-fourth of city mayors are women and there are only six women governors in the country – a total of 12 percent.
When Story first got to the Statehouse, there was a men’s room with a shower near the third-floor house chamber; but women legislators had to run downstairs to the basement, to use a public women’s room. “You could miss a roll-call vote,” she remarked. She remembers that in 1993 or 94, the House Speaker had a women’s bathroom and shower installed on the third floor. There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“Guess what color the bathroom was,” she asked.
“Pink,” said the audience in unison.
In 1994, Story filed a pay equity bill for men and women to get equal pay for equal jobs, but the bill didn’t pass, she said, until 2016.
Another bill she produced drew consternation because it declared a woman’s right to breastfeed in public. Story wrote it after a woman was asked to leave a courtroom when an officer told her that breastfeeding her baby there was “illegal.” It never was illegal, according to Story, but she wanted a law to spell that out.
Story said now is an exciting time for women to run for office, given the headway made years ago, and the disparaging remarks the current president has made about women.
She said more women than ever are now running for office. Story said women must get over fears of public speaking and need to be able to ask for the money they need to run election campaigns.
Another point made by Story was that “no one’s expected to know everything. We think we don’t have the credentials or qualifications to do these things. But nobody does – at the beginning.”
Poet Marie Gauthier, who heads the Collected Poets Series, formed the Franklin County chapter of the League of Women Voters, in direct response to the 2016 presidential election.
“It’s really exciting to have so many women representing us, energizing voters,” Gauthier said. She said election competition is good, even if those running don’t get elected – because the incumbent has to stand on their record.
“We shouldn’t vote somebody in by default,” she said.
For women who don’t want to run for office, there are plenty of community positions that don’t require getting elected. Gauthier ran down a list of town committee vacancies in Shelburne, as an example of ways to get involved with local town government.
“You will learn as you go,” she said. “Even if you don’t want to be on stage at Town Meeting, running things, you can join a committee.”
“You grow stronger in your leadership by knowing other leaders,” she said. “They make you realize how much you have to contribute.”