Kicking Glass

he highly publicized appointments of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Attorney General Janet Reno as the first women to hold those posts are merely the tip of the iceberg. Women also run a remarkable array of other government activities-from regulating the nation's airways to running the federal prison system-that previously were presumed to require leaders with a Y-chromosome. Even a space shuttle mission last July was commanded by a female astronaut, Air Force Col. Eileen Collins.

When White House senior staffers convene each morning for their daily strategy meetings, half the attendees are usually women. Counselor to the President Ann Lewis, in fact, recalls a recent planning session at which the lone male participant glanced around the room and somewhat sheepishly remarked, "Gee, I guess I represent the guys."

Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala goes a step further, boasting in an interview that "women control all of the major operating divisions" of her department. During Alice Rivlin's tenure as director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shalala said she told President Clinton "it was possible for a major policy issue to move through the government and never touch a man's hand until it got to his."

As women achieve positions of power, they quite clearly are more likely than men to know-and draw upon the talents of-other qualified women. Under Charlene Barshefsky's leadership, for example, women hold five of the top nine posts in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Similarly, in 1995, Reno wrote a law journal article that enthusiastically trumpeted "the increased presence of women" in top Justice Department posts, which at the time included her deputy and seven of her 11 assistant attorneys general.

Much, but by no means all, of the credit for the shattering of glass ceilings throughout the federal establishment goes to Clinton, who benefited mightily from the emerging "gender gap" that has seen women vote in disproportionate numbers for Democrats. The President has been more than happy to show his gratitude on the patronage front. Forty percent of Clinton's political appointees-including a third of his current Cabinet-are women. Of his 329 judicial nominees who have won confirmation, 94 are women. Sixty percent of the females currently serving on the federal bench are Clinton appointees.

During the seven years of the Clinton administration, women have also made unprecedented gains in the upper echelon of the bureaucracy-the Senior Executive Service-where the percentage of females has nearly doubled. Similar increases have occurred at the GS-13 to GS-15 pay levels, the feeder positions for the SES.

"Women are more influential in the government today than at any other time," says Janice R. Lachance, director of the Office of Personnel Management. At the President's urging, Lachance adds, OPM has sought to make the government "the employer of choice for many women" by tailoring workplace policies and health benefits to "the special needs that women have in this society."

In the view of University of Wisconsin political scientist Virginia Sapiro, such personnel decisions have come naturally for Clinton. In writing of the 42nd President's legacy, she notes that he "has spent his adult life surrounded by professional, politically active, feminist women, including his wife." Indeed, Clinton has been dubbed the nation's "first feminist President" by Atlantic Monthly writer Steven Stark.

Longtime feminist advocate Judith Lichtman is quick to point out, however, that women have not yet "reached nirvana," despite the efforts of Clinton and "the very important role played by the First Lady." According to OPM, the female share of the government's civilian workforce is 43 percent-compared with 46 percent in the private sector. And men hold more than 75 percent of the highest-paying federal jobs-GS-13 and above. On average, female government workers earn nearly $10,000 per year less than men.

Nor have all of the advances by women in the Clinton administration come without a fight. "We've learned to play the game the way the guys play it," explains former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, a charter member of an increasingly muscular network of female politicos who know how to put pressure on the White House. Ferraro, for example, forcefully rallied support for Albright when the Clinton camp appeared divided over the political advisability of appointing a female Secretary of State.

Ferraro argues that "the Old Girls Network" doesn't come close to rivaling its male counterpart in influence, but adds that today many more women, including those serving in the Senate, "are in position to carry weight on some of these issues." The women's network also has shown that it recognizes the importance of returning favors. At the low point of the Clinton presidency-the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal-more than a dozen leaders of major women's organizations issued a statement denouncing Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr for what they characterized as his "relentless campaign . . . to hound President Clinton out of office."

It's hardly surprising, therefore, that a woman, Donna Brazile, has been given the high-visibility post of campaign manager of the man Clinton hopes will be his successor, Vice President Al Gore-even if overall direction of the Gore effort remains in the hands of a male campaign chairman, Tony Coelho.

A Different World

Donna Shalala and Sheila Widnall couldn't have had more different experiences upon coming into government. When Shalala first came to Washington as an assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Carter administration, men tried to ignore her. Two decades later, after Widnall became the first female head of a branch of the armed services when she was named Air Force Secretary, men quite literally embraced her.

"I remember going to Capitol Hill, and if I took a male assistant, the member of Congress would talk to the male, even though I was the ranking person in the room," Shalala says. "When I went alone, they talked to me." She quickly learned to leave the men behind.

"Today, it's a different world," declares Shalala, who left the chancellorship of the University of Wisconsin to take the reins of the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services. "I think Congress has gotten used to having women in positions of power."

While the Pentagon is widely regarded as the most macho of the government's domains, Widnall arrived there in 1993 as a known-and respected-quantity. As a professor of aeronautical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she had been involved in Air Force-sponsored research and had served on a variety military boards and committees.

"Part of my academic mission was to get out in the field and fly in all these airplanes and do all sorts of crazy things with people in the Air Force," she explains. When Clinton appointed her as Air Force Secretary it was akin to a homecoming. When she attended a reunion of retired four-star generals, she said, "I got 22 hugs." And when she first met the renowned test pilot Chuck Yeager, she says he told her, "You're the best Secretary the Air Force has ever had because you've flown everything."

Although Shalala and Widnall bring unique experiences and talents to the table, they underscore the point that women cannot be easily pigeonholed. Lichtman, who heads the National Partnership for Women and Families, formerly the Women's Legal Defense Fund, says women often experience "a backlash of sorts" when they receive promotions formerly reserved for men. She argues, however, that such "stereotypic fears" are generally put to rest once women begin performing their new jobs.

Still, the perception that women are advancing in government at the expense of men has spawned a great deal of water cooler grumbling and at least one formal complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by a disgruntled Foreign Service officer.

In a recent research paper, John Crum of the Merit Systems Protection Board staff and San Francisco State University professor of public administration Katherine Naff note that women benefited from high turnover in the SES during the early years of the Clinton administration. "Many of the more senior executives, who were largely white men, took advantage of early retirement incentives" offered to facilitate government downsizing.

A more powerful factor is the revolutionary increase in female participation in graduate education, particularly law school, that has taken place over the last 20 years or so. Widnall, who's now back at MIT after her four-year stint at the Pentagon, notes that when she was an engineering student, women made up barely 1 percent of her class. Today, about a third of the students at MIT are female, she says.

As Constance Horner, who held a series of high posts in the Reagan and Bush administrations, puts it, there is "a tidal wave of educated women who are simply showing up for work and making their case."

In order to survive and prosper in predominantly male cultures, female managers have to demonstrate special skills, suggests the University of Wisconsin's Sapiro. "There are a lot of men who still have trouble having a woman be their boss," she says. "If women are going to be successful, they can't use a 'command' style with the men below them. It doesn't get you what you want; it doesn't get their cooperation."

Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman adds that "the resistance certainly is not as great as when I started out many years ago," but adds that female executives must still be conscious of their path-breaking roles. She says "new models of thinking and working together" must be developed that recognize that "men and women are now partners in the workplace across the American landscape."

What works best for managers of either sex, argues Lachance, is the ability to communicate and build consensus. "We are looking for what we call the soft skills-the ability to work in teams and to work with stakeholders." She adds that "women are very often at least as good as men when it comes to those skills." Accordingly, "in an open and competitive process, they should continue to make dramatic gains," she says.

Old Girls Network

Although Ferraro argues women remain "far behind" men when it comes to wielding political clout, the infighting over
Albright's nomination suggests otherwise. The appointment of a female Secretary of State may have appealed to Clinton all along, but a sizable group of his advisers-reportedly including Gore-opposed the idea and coalesced instead behind Richard Holbrooke, who since has taken over the post formerly held by Albright as ambassador to the United Nations.

Albright's feminist allies and strategists decided to take the gloves off after a pair of ill-considered moves by her opponents. The first was a leak to the press from White House aides suggesting that Albright was a "second tier" candidate in the hunt for a successor to first-term Secretary of State Warren Christopher. The second was a phone call to Albright from Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan suggesting that overt lobbying on her part would be offensive.

The anonymous belittling of Albright's prospects rubbed some raw nerves. "It was an insult to all of us who have worked hard and played by the rules," Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., told Albright biographer Ann Blackman. But the hint from Jordan really struck sparks. The implication, Ferraro explains, "was that we couldn't raise the issue about her being a woman because that might have a backlash, and this wasn't the way it was going to be done. When I heard that, I turned around and told somebody, 'That's bullshit.' "

Before long, Gore, who eventually shifted his support to Albright, was besieged with phone calls from women and arm-twisting by such Albright stalwarts as Ferraro, Mikulski and former Rep. Barbara Kennelly, D-Conn. "It was a good old-fashioned fight over who would make the best Secretary of State," explains Shalala, who also joined the fray.

The Albright network also included Wendy Sherman, formerly a fund raiser with the political action committee EMILY's List, and seasoned political operative Elaine Shocas, a top aide to Albright at the United Nations. Sherman and Shocas are now members of the Secretary's inner circle of advisers on the seventh floor of the State Department. The roots of the pro-Albright coalition, however, go back to the successful maneuvering by women's leaders in 1984 that resulted in Ferraro's historic vice presidential candidacy. Ferraro gives great credit to Walter Mondale for choosing her as his running mate, but insists "it would not have happened if the feminist community didn't push."

Women's networking is by no means confined to Democrats. Albright herself enlisted former Georgetown University colleague Jeane Kirkpatrick, who was the Reagan administration's U.N. envoy, in lining up the support of such Senate Republicans as Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms of North Carolina.

Nor is the women's network at the federal level a recent creation. Barbara Hackman Franklin, who served as Secretary of Commerce in the Bush administration, points out that the gathering momentum of the women's movement prompted President Nixon in 1971 to hire her to recruit more women for his administration. As female appointments increased, Franklin recalls, she held regular White House meetings providing politically ambitious Republican women with an ongoing and expanding channel for "networking, comparing notes and socializing."

By now, women's networking has come so far that it has almost outlived its usefulness, Shalala argues. "This is mainstreaming now," she says, noting that many of her Clinton administration colleagues-both male and female-have known each other and worked together as equals in various pursuits for nearly a quarter of a century. As for barriers to women, she scoffs, "there are a lot of ways of getting in [to the government] now that don't require having a bunch of queen bees around."

Filling the Pipeline

The explosive growth in professional education of women over the past three decades has greatly enlarged the pool of female talent in the career ladders of political activism and the civil service. In 1970, only 5.4 percent of law graduates were women; by 1996 the number had soared to 43.5 percent. Over the same period, the number of women receiving master's degrees in business administration rose tenfold, from 3.6 percent to 37.6 percent.

The White House's Lewis lauds the opportunities that have opened up for younger women to acquire the political and administrative savvy needed to move up the government ladder. Women are now moving from political fund raising to work on Capitol Hill or in the executive branch, gaining experience and making contacts as they go, she says. As a result "there are pipelines of women who have now come along and are ready when higher-level appointments open up."

Lewis also says progress has been made in avoiding the pitfall of considering posts to be "women's jobs, once they are held by a woman." As personnel shifts have occurred in
the Clinton White House and Cabinet, she argues, "we have established that high-level jobs are held by either sex."

Moving women into nontraditional roles is hardly a goal invented by the current administration. During the Nixon administration, many mid-career level women moved into previously male-only posts, including "sky marshals, Secret Service agents, air traffic controllers [and] tugboat captains," Franklin boasts. "With each succeeding administration, there has been a ramp up in the numbers of women," the Brookings Institution's Horner adds.

When Clinton and Gore took office, however, Shalala recalls that "they made it very clear that there was extra outreach to be sure that we provided opportunities for women." As a consequence, 57 percent of the administration's Schedule C political appointments to policy and supporting positions have gone to women. "When you talk about [feeding] the pipeline, we are certainly stepping up to the plate," the Labor Department's Herman says.

On the civil service side of the ledger, the number of women in the SES, which was a scant 5 percent 20 years ago, has nearly doubled during the seven years of Clinton's tenure, from 12.5 percent to 22.4 percent. As Crum and Naff note in their paper, the sharpest increases have occurred within the noncareer SES-the 10 percent of SES jobs over which Presidents have the most influence. At present, 39 percent of non-career SES positions are held by women, the White House reports.

Not only have their numbers increased, but the women who have been pursuing diverse careers in public service are now showing up in high places. Psychologist Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, for example, has spent her career working for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, becoming the agency's director in 1992. Jane F. Garvey, former director of Boston's Logan International Airport, now heads the Federal Aviation Administration. And Darleen A. Druyun, a much-honored member of the SES, now holds a top job in the Air Force's weapons acquisition system.

OPM Director Lachance is an example of the pattern cited by Lewis of how women rise through the political pipeline. After earning her law degree in 1978, she went to work for the Small Business Administration and then parlayed that experience into a series of staff jobs on Capitol Hill. Her next job, with the American Federation of Government Employees, paved the way to a Clinton administration post at OPM, where she advanced through the ranks to become director in 1997.

Lachance says her agency has tried to make government service more attractive to women through greater sensitivity to their health care needs, their obligations as homemakers and their ambitions for advancement.

Women's health benefits, in areas ranging from mammography screening to hospital stays for child birth and mastectomies, have been expanded. OPM also has pushed federal managers to implement family-friendly policies such as flexible scheduling, telecommuting and part-time employment opportunities, Lachance says.

While Lachance enthuses about the "disintegration of the glass ceiling in the federal government," University of Pittsburgh historian Paula Baker suggests that women, to an extent, have simply taken advantage of a window of opportunity created by a lessening of public regard for the importance of government. Although recent breakthroughs for women have been dramatic, she says they have occurred during "what blessedly has been a 'no news' decade."

Baker says she doubts that a woman would have been named Secretary of State "during a period of national crisis or in the midst of the Cold War." While acknowledging the "critical mass of women" that now possesses the competence and the connections needed to claim high posts in government, she fears that their achievements are somewhat diminished by the fact that they've occurred at a time when there is "a fair amount of distrust in government's ability to solve problems."

Dick Kirschten is a contributing editor for National Journal.