Skirting disaster: feminists are preparing to move in on the Democrats after the November elections.

Feminists are preparing to move in on the Democrats after the November elections.

WHEN comedienne Joan Rivers was recently asked whom she preferred between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, she replied: "That's like asking me which of the Menendez brothers I prefer." Many feminists share Miss Rivers's dislike for both candidates. Patricia Ireland, President of the National Organization for Women, says, "We're facing the 'evil of two lessers' right now." But unlike Miss Rivers, she and her sisters-in-arms have a decided preference for Clinton. They know full well that he has not stopped supporting feminist causes and see no reason to take his "lurch to the right" seriously.

The convention presented on the networks, with its personal testimonials and uplifting talk of family values, offered little to feminist activists. Their favorite issues -- affirmative action, abortion rights, comparable worth, the glass ceiling -- were scarcely mentioned. The Hillary Rodham Clinton who had represented them so well at the UN women's conference in Peking, was not in evidence, having been replaced by Hillary Clinton the PTA mom who told the American public how "for Bill and me, family has been the center of our lives." The prime-time convention could never engage the loyalties of the feminist ideologues; but away from the cameras the Democratic National Committee was running a second "shadow convention" to reassure them that the party's feminist agenda was in no danger of being abandoned.

For four days an army of energetic women attended a non-stop series of tributes to Hillary, fund-raisers, daily meetings of the Women's Caucus, a training seminar on how to "take back" talk radio and, not least, a session on the "Peking Platform," a controversial feminist program which the President's Interagency Council on Women is quietly "implementing" in this country.

One of the best-attended events was a luncheon honoring nineteenth-century social worker Jane Addams and Hillary Clinton. Gloria Steinem praised Chicago for establishing the new Jane Addams Memorial Park. She told the room full of (mostly) women that the park was important because in most parts of the country progressive women are never honored by memorials. "In New York City . . . we have only white, warlike, testosterone-poisoned men." Needless to say, no rhetoric about "testosterone-poisoned men" was heard at Convention I.

The mood at the "Take Back the Airwaves" training seminar was less exultant. The one area of public discourse that liberals and feminists have not found it easy to colonize is talk radio. This irks them, and they keep trying to find ways to counter its influence. Hence this training seminar sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, offering practical suggestions on what we, the audience, can do. The trainer, a Mr. Jon-Christopher Bua, formerly an off-Broadway director and actor, was introduced to us as the "secret weapon of the DNC." We were told to "get ready to take back the airwaves with Jon-Christopher!"

Jon-Christopher opened by telling us that most talk-show hosts are white males named Bob and possessed of enormous egos. He went on to the problem of "how to get on talk radio as a guest or a 'call-in."' He asked for ten volunteers to give two-minute presentations that the rest of us would criticize and evaluate. He cautioned us to be sure to "empower the audience" and "to create a dialogue," urging each volunteer to "put a human face on it." We were told that "a great way to speak passionately is to give an example of a real person -- maybe even you."

A young woman raised her hand and bounded to the stage. She proceeded to deliver an incoherent confession about how she had been a victim of incest and alcohol abuse, and was therefore deeply committed to women's issues. But she had somehow overcome all this adversity and felt it had all made her a better person. She went well over the two-minute limit. Unfazed, Jon-Christopher encouraged her to find some way to tie these personal revelations to the message of the Democratic Party. She tried. "What I am trying to get at is: I want to reiterate Hillary Clinton's message that it does take a village to raise a family." The audience was more than a little uncomfortable with this, but Jon-Christopher was delighted. "You know it's very painful -- but very crucial -- to come up before those you don't know to express those kinds of feelings -- and I think that's what people can do."

Later on, feminist lawyer and talk-radio hostess Gloria Allred joined him on stage and told us that our chances of being invited onto talk radio as official guests were slim. "The trend is away from guests." What we needed to do was to "learn how to call in." She advised us to start dialing in early and to "call and call often." Be "interesting, passionate, and concise."

For the rest of the time we practiced making "spontaneous" calls promoting Democratic messages and destroying the arguments and composure of conservative talk-show hosts. Before we broke up, Jon-Christopher confidingly informed us that it was Hillary Clinton who originated the idea and promoted the project of a Talk Radio Initiative. No one seemed surprised to learn this.

On Day Two of the convention, Congresswomen Carolyn Maloney, Pat Schroeder, and Maxine Waters, along with Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, called a press conference to announce several "positive new initiatives for American women." Foremost among these was the "Contract with the Women of the U.S.A.," which, Mrs. Abzug explained, "adapts to American realities the historic Platform for Action adopted by the U.S. Government . . . in Beijing." The policies of the Women's Conference in Peking are highly controversial, but the executive branch of the government may well succeed in committing the country to them and is attempting to do so without benefit of any debate or policy review by Congress. It was to that end that Clinton set up the President's Interagency Council on Women, a body chaired by Donna Shalala and including representatives from all Cabinet departments. The Council is formally charged with "coordinating the federal implementation of the Platform for Action adopted at Beijing."

The articles of the Peking platform articulate some unexceptionable goals to relieve the very real deficits and injustices suffered by Third World women; but they also clearly reflect the input of American feminists by attacking "gender stereotypes" (read: distinct roles for women in traditional families), demanding "self-esteem training to assist women," and calling for "diversity in work management styles" and "support and encouragement of gender studies and research."

Secretary Shalala seems eager to implement the Peking platform. According to the Washington Times (Feb. 5) agencies participating in the President's Interagency Council on Women were being prodded to show progress. Council member Kathy Hendrix reported that they had been told: "Here is the platform -- how does your agency measure up?" Agency executives are being asked, "What new initiative might you come up with?" Someone should tell Donna Shalala that "measuring up" to the Peking platform and "implementing" it unconstitutionally bypasses the legislative branch of government.

The "Contract with the Women of the U.S.A." is American feminism's version of the Peking platform. Those who accept the contract sign on to pledges (12 in all), among which are pledges to uphold reproductive rights, to work for educational equity ("including the creation of gender-fair multicultural curricula"), to support comparable-worth policies, to strengthen affirmative action. Signatories pledge "to seek reduction of military spending and conversion of military facilities to socially productive purposes." One pledge calls for a full-scale welfare state. "Recognizing the value of women's unpaid and underpaid labor to our families, communities, and economy, we support a living wage for all workers, and adequate funding for welfare, child care, education, and job training." The contract makes one qualified concession to private enterprise: "We pledge access to collateral-free credit for women-owned small businesses."

The Clinton Administration's strong support of the Peking Platform has been cleverly exploited by feminist activists to persuade a surprising number of mainstream women's organizations to sign on to the Contract with the Women of the U.S.A. Bella Abzug calls the Contract "the mirror-opposite of the Gingrich 'Contract"' and says it "tap[s] into a general feeling that women are being attacked and downsized, as hard-won gains and pro-women, pro-children policies are decimated." Rep. Maloney explains the need for the Contract in similar terms, claiming that "The 104th Congress is the most anti-woman, anti- family, anti-urban Congress in memory." Yet feminists promoting the Contract can point to such nonpartisan, mainstream signatories as the YWCA, Hadassah, The League of Women Voters, and Girl Scouts of San Francisco. (Which raises a question: Who decides that Girl Scouts or YWCA members support these controversial objectives?)

When the Contract and Speakout announcements were being made at the Chicago Convention, the stage was crowded with more than thirty feminist activists. However, the press was not there, and there were only five or six people in the audience. When push comes to shove, the activists don't seem to have the troops. All the same, they are full of optimism. Convinced that history is on their side, they feel they speak for all women. And with Donna Shalala and a sympathetic White House very much on their side, they are confident that they can outflank an unsympathetic legislature. As Carolyn Maloney said in their press release, "The collective will of American women is too strong for any Congress to stop. Our success is inevitable." It must be said that their success so far is, indeed, impressive. But at the Democratic convention they were kept well out of sight.