Chisholm Tells Women To Seek Power, Identity

Women today must become more involved in politics as a means to garnering power in society, but must also work to maintain their feminine identity, a panel of women activists said yesterday.

The four-member panel discussion of "Gender and Power in the 1980s," which was sponsored by the Women's Studies Department, argued that women must not be satisfied with their achievements to date and must press on with their campaign for women's rights.

Congressman Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman Congressman and the first Black woman to run for President, stressed that women need to maintain their female identities, in part by being good mothers, as well as working to be active citizens.

"I would go so far as to say that a woman with young children should not enter the political arena until her children are eight or nine years old," Chisholm said before an audience of about 140 in Harvard Hall.

She said that women who enter the work force before their children reach that age often deprive them of love and attention that is essential to their full development.

Chisholm also said that although the women's movement has progressed greatly in recent years, women must continue to work for change.

"Today's young woman cannot allow herself to put her knowledge on the backshelf and ignore the issues facing her," Chisholmsaid.

As part of the quest for this power, women mustrecognize that they should not be afraid ofseeking political power, the panelists said.

"We need to recognize that power is not a badthing," said Ethel Klein, associate professor ofpolitical science at Columbia University.

Once they achieve such power, women must learnto cope with this responsibility, panelists said.

"Women need to prove that they are tough. If awoman were to come out in a press conference andsay `We are going to nuke them,' people wouldthink someone else had written it for her," saidJean Bethke Elshtain, a professor of politicalscience at University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

If women are looking to advance in politics,they will probably have an easier time doing sowithin the Republican Party than the DemocraticParty, although the Democrats better addresswomen's issues, several panelists added.

But if women decide that electoral politics isnot for them, they do have options.

Women can gain power through appointedpositions in government, as well as elective ones,said Audrey Rowe, an official in Washington D.C.Mayor Marion Barry's administration.

Appointed officials can actually have moreinfluence on the nation's policies than electedofficials because, "We are the ones who implementthe policies and often we can even initiateimportant policy measures," Rowe said.

This is the third year that a committee onwomen's studies has sponsored such a colloquium onwomen's issues. Previous topics have included thefamily and sexual differences between men andwomen.

The second in this series of four discussionswill take place on December 10