FEINSTEIN BROKE GENDER BARRIERS
In 1969, soon after Dianne Feinstein first made history, a San Francisco newspaper published a bemused feature on her marriage. Headlined “The Big Man in Dianne’s Life,” it centered on her husband, Bert Feinstein, a prominent local surgeon, and began:
“When Mama is in politics, there’s many an unkind query heard about who wears the pants in the family. Such is the fearsome image of a lady politico.”
The fearsome Mrs. Feinstein had recently shocked the town, finishing first in a crowded race for the Board of Supervisors. She was the first woman elected to the city’s legislative body in a halfcentury — and only the second ever. Capturing the top vote total positioned her to become board president, San Francisco’s second-most influential municipal office after mayor.
For the newspaper, this raised a crucial question:
“Did Dr. Feinstein feel humbled or intimidated now that the little lady was occupying the limelight?”
Oy.
This anachronistic specimen of cringeworthy sexism (and journalistic fatuity) reads today as an artifact of cultural anthropology, a reminder of the mores that Feinstein (and her thenhusband, who declared himself neither humbled nor intimidated) confronted as she began her pioneering career.
Feinstein has died at the age of 90. In political time, her demise seems far more than the end of a mere era — more like the passing of an eon.
As politician, policymaker and uncommonly private public figure, Feinstein for six decades modeled attitudes, behavior and values that have become increasingly rare. Reliably favoring civility over churlishness, she preferred independent judgment to ideology, pragmatism to partisanship, problemsolving to power-seeking.
Many tributes for California’s longestserving U.S. senator will no doubt highlight Washington achievements. But any assessment of her historical influence begins with the generations of women who followed her into national and state politics, passing through doorways she was the first to breach.
Among the milestones and highprofile achievements, it’s easy to overlook the long years when Feinstein paid her dues in relative obscurity. From the early 1960s until she became mayor, she persisted through recurring defeats, private anguish and countless petty slights, the prologue to a remarkable career shaped by determination to defy the odds in a field perpetually dominated by men.
As one of the first female mayors of a major U.S. city, she guided San Francisco with compassion, dignity and skill. She responded early and effectively to the AIDS epidemic and managed thousands of other day-to-day crises and mundane affairs with diligence and industry.
Nine years later, she left office with lofty ratings and a formidable political brand. In 1990, she became the first woman nominated by a major party to run for governor in California. Though narrowly defeated, Feinstein effectively won by losing, gaining statewide and national recognition that installed her as a front-runner for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992.
She triumphed that November, her victory a centerpiece of what the media termed the “Year of the Woman,” as the political energy of female voters, triggered by the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings one year earlier, shaped elections across the nation.
It was a pivotal moment for politics — and for Feinstein. As she embarked upon the second three-decade act of a historic political career, the chauvinism and misogyny she had faced for a quarter-century began to be recognized and called out.
“Up until this election being a woman has not been an asset,” she told a reporter back then. But now, “women have become symbols of change.”
Jerry Roberts is a former managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of “Dianne Feinstein: Never Let Them See You Cry.”