Through the Crystal Ceiling

Denied the right to vote until 1920, women have fought their way into the ruling corridors of government through a painfully slow process. For the most part, they've been confined to stereotypical roles as authorities on homemaking, child rearing or sweatshop abuses. Of the 16 women who've led Cabinet departments, nine have served at either Labor or what is now Health and Human Services. In recent years, however, women have come to the decision-making table as experts in areas ranging from diplomacy and trade relations to aeronautical engineering and law enforcement.

When Frances Perkins shattered the Cabinet's crystal ceiling by becoming Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, she was following a well-worn path carved by female social reformers and suffragettes. Her pathway to power was through settlement house work and the Consumer League movement, which traces its beginnings to an 1881 plea from a shirtmaker named Leonora O'Reilly for "help and sympathy from the educated women of New York for their toiling and downtrodden sisters."

In 1911, Perkins cut her political teeth in Albany as the league's lobbyist, fighting to reduce the workweek for women and children to 54 hours. That experience led to posts on the New York State Industrial Commission, first under Gov. Alfred E. Smith and then under Roosevelt, who became governor in 1929.

More importantly, Perkins became part of a broader women's network that included her mentor, Florence Kelly, the crusading president of the National Consumers League, Mary W. "Molly" Dewson, director of Democratic Party's Women's Committee, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote articles during the 1920s championing progressive causes and demanding real political power for women.

When Roosevelt won the presidency in 1932, Dewson publicly asserted that women "did a lot to elect him, and he knows it." Roosevelt, overriding objections from organized labor, appointed Perkins as his Labor Secretary. And within two years, according to historian Blanche Wiesen Cook, "more than 50 women had been appointed to ranking national positions."

Although some editorialists opined that "a two-fisted man" was needed for the Labor post, the department has become over the past dozen years the most popular place for female Cabinet appointees. Presidents Reagan and Clinton each named a female Labor Secretary, and President Bush appointed two.

Another major Cabinet pathway for women was opened by Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, when he named Oveta Culp Hobby as his Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Presidents Carter, Reagan and Clinton also have named women to direct the department-since renamed Health and Human Services-and its many missions that deal with the support of women and children.

No women headed Cabinet departments during the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon presidencies, but both Johnson and Nixon named female advisers on consumer issues. The Nixon White House's Office of Consumer Affairs, headed by Virginia Knauer, hired Elizabeth Dole as its deputy director, launching a career that since has included a stint as a federal trade commissioner, two Cabinet Secretary jobs (Transportation and Labor) and a serious, though short-lived, campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

By 1970, the feminist movement had given birth to a new and aggressive set of women's organizations that pressed for broader inclusion in all areas of government, not just those deemed peculiarly appropriate to their gender. In early 1971, Nixon responded by issuing a memorandum directing all of his Cabinet officers and agency heads to develop plans for the promotion and recruitment of women to high-level positions.

By 1974, there were enough women in senior positions in Washington to create a group called Executive Women in Government. Although the organization could muster only 40 founding members in 1974, it has since has expanded its roster nearly tenfold.

During the 1970s and 1980s, women moved into more mainstream assignments. Presidents Ford and Carter appointed female Secretaries to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Carter named a female Education Secretary. Under Carter, and again under Bush, women were placed in charge of the Commerce Department. Bush also appointed former HUD Secretary Carla A. Hills as U.S. trade representative.

President Reagan, though far more popular among male voters than females, nonetheless shattered a few glass ceilings of his own. He appointed the first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor. Reagan also designated Jeane J. Kirkpatrick as ambassador to the United Nations and gave Dole a stint as Transportation Secretary.

The 1992 election that brought Bill Clinton to the White House took place in the much ballyhooed "Year of the Woman," which saw an unprecedented surge in female candidacies for public office and big increases in the number of seats held by women in the House and Senate.

It took three tries to come up with a confirmable nominee to become the first female Attorney General, Janet Reno, but by the time Clinton was finished an unprecedented number of female appointments had been made at the Cabinet and subcabinet levels and on the White House staff. Clinton nominated a series of women to nontraditional roles, such as Energy Secretary and Secretary of the Air Force.

At the start of his second term, Clinton chose United Nations Ambassador Madeleine Albright as the first woman to serve as Secretary of State, the most senior post in the Cabinet. The increases in female political appointments under Clinton were matched by advances by women in the upper reaches of the civil service ranks as well. If an event was needed to symbolize how far women have come, it occurred last July when astronaut Eileen Collins blasted skyward as the first female commander of the space shuttle.