10-24-2021 Women to Watch - Flipbook - Page 32
STAYING
POWER
By Pamela Wood
F
Maryland’s
women
lawmakers
push for more
influence as
their caucus
celebrates
50 years
32
WO M E N T O WAT C H
ifty years ago, the handful of women lawmakers in Maryland didn’t even have easy access to a
bathroom during voting sessions. And when they
asked for one, the speaker of the House of Delegates
called a delegate up to the rostrum, presented her with
a fur-covered toilet seat and appointed her chair of the
“Ladies Restroom Committee.”
That lawmaker — the late Del. Pauline Menes of Prince
George’s County — was so frustrated by the dismissal of
women’s needs that she and other lawmakers formed the
Maryland General Assembly’s Women’s Caucus in 1972, believed to be the first organization of its kind in the nation.
But as with most political discussions about bathrooms,
it wasn’t just about the bathrooms.
Women lawmakers also were livid that they were being shut out of weekly meetings between the governor and
top male politicians. Menes wasn’t allowed in, despite her
supposed leadership of the restroom committee. And Sen.
Mary L. Nock of the Eastern Shore wasn’t invited either,
even though she held the much higher-ranking role of Senate president pro-tem.
“We’re getting a little annoyed by all the humor … and
the lack of appointments,” Sen. Rosalie S. Abrams of Baltimore told The Baltimore Sun in 1972 as the women’s caucus
was launched. “It reflects an attitude on the part of men in
the General Assembly and the positions of leadership that
women are not at the same level of competency and expertise.”
l
2021
(That story was written by a male reporter, who led it off
by noting that male lawmakers had their feathers “slightly
ruffled” by the formation of the women’s caucus. The story
quoted then-House Speaker Thomas Hunter Lowe as saying
the women were an “oversensitive” minority.)
The women delegates finally got their own bathroom
in 1986. Fast-forward to today: Women now chair several
committees and hold powerful political positions, including House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones. She’s the
first non-male and nonwhite presiding officer in the General Assembly’s history.