“People ask, ‘Are you going to be strong enough? Are you going to be a fighter for us?’” said Rep. Judy Biggert, who beat five men in the initial Illinois Republican primary in 1998. “That’s always the way I’ve been treated.”
Biggert said she was told during her early days in law school at Northwestern University that she was a student by mistake — a man should have been in her seat.
“That has always given me the drive to work two, three times harder than men,” Biggert said.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a rising GOP star and female-candidate recruiter for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said it took several “taps on the shoulder” before she decided to run for office.
“Women seem to wait for someone who plants the idea and gives them confidence,” McMorris Rodgers said. “I had individuals who shared their confidence in me, and it helped erase some of the self-doubt.”
“Running for Congress is no walk in the park,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who has served in the House since 1995. “It’s a tough business, and people who do it successfully stand trial by fire.”
Lofgren entered the 1994 Democratic primary in California as the ultimate underdog against a favored male candidate, San Jose Mayor Tom McEnery. On primary night, television crews and reporters crowded her opponent’s headquarters, awaiting the presumed winner’s victory speech, while a lone photographer sat at Lofgren’s offices, waiting to snap a photo of the loser. But in an upset, Lofgren won the primary and then the election. Despite her victory, she faced additional hurdles on Capitol Hill that have continued to drive her daily work efforts. Her initial committee requests were ignored, she said, and she struggled to break through some of the old boys’ networks.
“There were some older male members who had a tough time accepting that there were women members,” said Lofgren, an immigration lawyer who now serves on the powerful House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees.
However, political science professor Jyl Josephson, director of the Rutgers Women’s Studies Program, cautions not to make too much of gender differences on the Hill — particularly among members who’ve been there for a while.
“We spend a lot time measuring gender differences rather than similarities,” Josephson said. “But there are many studies that show similarities, and they don’t get discussed nearly as much.”
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