▶ entertainment
▶ events
▶ issues
▶ music
▶ art
hilltopics
Spe
daily kansan
monday <
3.29.99 <
eight.a <
Planting the roots
The success of Kansas' current women politicians stems from a rich history of revolutionary foremothers
From left to right: Barbara Ballard, state representative, D-Lawrence, Joan Finney, former Kansas governor, and Carla Stavall, Kansas attorney general are represented in a caricature.
story by katrina hull illustration by josh peterson
W when early women settlers helped their husbands plow the windy
bands plow the windy Kansas prairies, they were also putting down the roots of a political culture.
Now, a century later, their granddaughters and great granddaughters are harvesting political success, Kansas women politicians say.
Kansas ranks fifth in the nation in the number of women legislators at 30 percent female, according to the Center for the American Women and Politics.
The statistic did not surprise State Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence. She said Kansas women have demonstrated daring spirit and have made remarkable contributions to the state.
"Kansas has an extremely rich history," Ballard said. "Women have always been involved in the state and in partnership roles that are equality oriented."
Diana Carlin, associate professor of communications, said there was definitely a pioneering spirit in Kansas women that affected the state's political culture.
Women played a large role in settling western states. Those settlers began a tradition of women leadership roles, said Carlin, who teaches courses in gender and political communications.
In 1887, Kansas was the first state to give women the right to vote in city elections. That same year, Argonia was the first city in the country to elect a woman mayor, and Syracuse, Kan. was the first city in the United States to elect an all-woman city council.
Carlin said the reason for increased women's political involvement in Kansas, particularly in suffrage, was a political strategy. Eastern suffragists realized it was easier to get suffrage into new state constitutions than to change old ones, she said.
National suffragists, such as Susan B. Anthony, advocated women's voting rights in Kansas to further women's political involvement.
Carlin said social forces kept
"There is a greater expectation if you're a woman than if you're a man. Sometimes from other people, but a lot of times from yourself, because you don't want to let other women down."
Barbara Ballard
State Represenative, D-Lawrence
the number of women serving in a political capacity low until after the 1970s. In the last two decades, acceptance for women working outside the home has grown.
"When women did get involved, Kansas moved quickly to elect women to high positions, and that goes back to the roots." Carlin said.
Joan Finney, Kansas' first woman governor, said that she was grateful to her maternal ancestors. Her grandmother was a suffragist and her mother was a businesswoman.
"I always believed strongly that women should have much more of a role than they have had," Finney said.
Finney said women's achievements in economic areas of society furthered the 1970 women's movement and opened the door for her political career.
After working 16 years for Rep Frank Carlson in the U.S. House, Finney thought she was finished with politics. She had three children at home.
"Republican leaders sent word for me to step aside for a man to run — and that was the wrong thing to say to me," Finney said.
In the early 70s, however, her name came up for a seat in the Kansas House, and Finney said she had to take the challenge.
Although she lost in the primary, Finney said there was still a challenge for her to change the male-attorney politician image.
At this time, Finney changed to the Democratic party because she said it was more supportive of women.
Finney described herself as a people's politician and not a party politician.
In 1974, she was elected as State Treasurer on the Democratic
ticket, a position she held for 16 years and four elections before winning the gubernatorial election in 1990.
Finney said she did not run for re-election in 1994 because she wanted to leave behind a good record for young women who would aspire to political offices in the future.
Ballard also said that for women politicians there was a responsibility and extra incentive to do a good job.
Carlin said this was more of an issue 10 years ago when it was less common for women to run for political offices. Now that Kansas has elected many women to the state legislature, it is not a gender issue.
"There is a greater expectation if you're a woman than if you're a man," Ballard said. "Sometimes from other people, but a lot of times from yourself, because you don't want to let other women down."
Women often don't have as many connections to financial resources. Carlin said that as more women work in professional careers, they would broaden their financial base and would be able to provide more money to women's campaign funds.
The only gender barrier that still exists is access to finances when campaigning, Carlin said.
"It's harder for women to raise money and harder for women to ask for money," Carlin said. "They make up for that by working harder."
Carla Stovall, Kansas attorney general, recently told University of Kansas College Republicans how she felt responsible to young men and women.
More women may be getting elected, but that doesn't mean they aren't being placed under the same public scrutiny.
After a 1997 editorial in The Hutchinson News that called her a "sexpot." Stovall said she requested an apology not for herself, but to send the message that it was not appropriate to be treated that way.
Stovall, the first Kansas woman to hold the attorney general position, said that other than that one incident, she has not
experienced gender bias. She said her gender did not make it tough for her to get elected.
"My views were such it was easier to overlook being female because I was strong on law and order kind of issues," Stovall said.
Ballard and Finney also said any gender bias that they had experienced was minimal.
Finney said that two things have helped diminish gender bias: women who have succeeded and men who have daughters. She said that men have realized that women were going to be involved in politics and have chosen to support them.
Carlin described women's progress in politics as evolutionary. In the past 10 years people have seen women's names as viable candidates, especially in Kansas.
Many women have contributed to Kansas politics and continued the progressive tradition of the state. Ballard said.
"Kansas has a leg up on other states because we have a history of women being involved," she said. "There is an advantage being from Kansas."
Nationally, the next step for women politicians is the election of the first female president.
With Elizabeth Dole in the 2002 presidential race, it is possible that the nation's first first man will be a Kansan.
Carlin said that she predicted that by 2012 there will be a woman president or at least a woman vice president.
Since 1992, there have been nine women in the Senate. The increased number of women in high political offices puts women in the position to run for president, she said.
Second, the current presidency and its scandals have made people question the job of the president.
"The situation with Clinton has made people think a woman would do a different kind of job," Carlin said.
Timeline of Kansas Women's Political Accomplishments
The following list of events and persons is not complete. Too many Kansas women have contributed to the history of the state to compile a comprehensive list. There are also many other areas than politics where Kansas women have been pioneers.
1859 Clarina Nichols requested voting rights for women at the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention and urged women to revolt and refuse to marry if men didn't give them their rights.
1867 - Kansas was the first state to consider legislation that would have removed the words "white" and "male" from Kansas voting requirements.
1881 - Jennie Mitchell Kellog was first woman admitted to the Kansas bar.
1884 - The Kansas Women's Suffrage Organization was organized and formed.
February 1887 - Kansas women were given the right to vote in municipal elections.
1888 - Oskaloosa elected the first all-woman city council.
April 1887 - Susanna Madora Salter, 27,
was elected mayor of Argonia and became the
first woman mayor in the United States.
1890 to 1894 - Mary Elizabeth Lease and Annie Diggs traveled and spoke across the state and the nation as part of the Populist movement. Lease reportedly told farmers to "raise less corn and more hell," while Diggs was considered the workhorse of the movement.
1897 - Lutie Lytle, a Topeka High School graduate, was the first African-American women admitted to the bar.
1898 - Annie Diggs was appointed state librarian making her the first women to hold a state office in Kansas.
1911 - The state attorney general dismissed the Hunnewell male city council and Kansas Supreme Court fined same group of men "for making life miserable" for Mayor Ella Wilson.
1912 - Kansas became the seventh state to give women full suffrage.
1918 - Minne Grinstead became first woman elected to state legislature.
1918 - Nellie Cline was first women to argue before the Kansas Supreme Court; newspapers reported that "she was not nervous."
1926 - Mabel Chase became the first woman elected sheriff in the United States in Kiowa County.
1949 Kansan Georgia Neese Gray became the first woman U.S. Treasurer for President Harry Truman.
1932 - Kathryn O'Loughlin became the first Kansas women to serve a term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
1977 Kay McFarland became the first woman to serve on the Kansas Supreme Court. Today she is Chief Justice.
1978 - Nancy Landon Kassebaum became the first woman elected U.S. Senator who was not a widow of a congressman. For her first two years in Washington, D.C., she was the only woman senator. Kassebaum served until 1996, when she did not run for re-election.
1984 - Mary Beck Briscoe became the first woman appointed to the Kansas Court of Appeals.
1986 - Kansas elected Democrat Joan Finney as its first woman governor.
1990 - Carla Stovall was elected as state's first woman attorney general.
1996 - With Shiela Frahm's appointment to fill Bob Dole's seat in the U.S. house, Kansas became the only state to ever have equally balanced representation (three men and three women) in Washington, D.C.
1999 - Kansas ranks fifth in the nation for women in the state legislature.
Sources: "An Army of Women Gender and Politics in Gilded Kansas Age" by Michael Goldberg; "Kansas Women" by Ann Gardener; www.ink.org; www.cjonline.com; interview with Barbara Ballard.
↓