Cosmopolitan - Why Aren't the Extra-Effective Women of the U.S. Senate Getting the Credit They Deserve?

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By Jill Filipovic

Elizabeth Warren is a big name in the U.S. Senate today, but she almost didn't run at all.

Before her election in 2012, Warren was one of the legal world's most-cited scholars, an expert in bankruptcy, and a law professor at Harvard. After the economic crash of 2008, she came to Washington, D.C., to champion the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Warren was a leading candidate to run the agency until Congressional Republicans objected. So Warren packed up to leave Capitol Hill and return to Harvard.

Then Democrat Patty Murray, the senior senator from Washington, called and told Warren to run for the Senate. "I started in with all the reasons that I shouldn't, about how I didn't know this thing yet and I hadn't learned about that," Warren says. "And Patty finally just cut me off in the middle of a sentence and said, 'Oh, please. Men never ask if they're qualified enough. They just ask if you can raise enough money for them to win.'"

Warren, a Democrat, raised $39 million for her campaign, more than any other Senate candidate that year, and became Massachusetts's first female senator. Her career, she says, was made by "one woman helping another."

What's it like to be a woman in the Senate in 2015? Cosmopolitan invited the 20 sitting female senators to talk about that, and 16 of them took us up on the offer. In a series of interviews in Washington, D.C., they told us stories similar to Warren's. But they didn't describe a soft-focus sisterhood that propels them to work together. Instead, many of them said they've tapped into a style of collaborative leadership for one simple reason: It works.

Although they're a minority on Capitol Hill, the women of the Senate are among the country's most effective elected officials, working across the aisle more often than the Senate's men and keeping an increasingly fractured Congress creaking along ... even when, as they admit themselves, they don't always get the credit.

Travel back to the debilitating 16-day shutdown in October of 2013. Some 800,000 government employees were furloughed without pay, national parks closed, small businesses suffered from frozen government contracts. It cost the country billions. Americans faced a second shutdown if a new deal wasn't agreed upon by Jan. 15, 2014. Democrat Murray was tasked with hammering out a budget deal with Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

By mid-December, Murray and Ryan had a deal.

"That was clearly Patty Murray and her leadership," says Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin. "I remember talking with her a lot about her approach to a negotiation with Paul Ryan, who had so much limelight as budget chair and as vice presidential nominee on the Republican ticket. She just did her homework and got the job done."

Murray wasn't the only woman leading the effort to break the deadlock. During the October closure, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine took to the floor and proposed a series of ideas she thought both parties could agree upon. From there, a bipartisan group calling itself the Common Sense Caucus, led by Collins and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, worked to strategize solutions.

"It was Senator Collins who went to the floor and started to get things up and running again," says Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Then Shaheen, a Democrat, and her New Hampshire colleague Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, hatched a plan to keep the momentum going, holding a pizza night in Shaheen's D.C. office for all the women senators.

The Common Sense Caucus claimed among its ranks not only Shaheen and Ayotte, but also Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democratic senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Their ideas and efforts showed the American public that at least some legislators were trying to bridge the rifts and get the country working again. It was one of the few triumphs in an acutely contentious Congress.

"Take a look at the great accomplishments of last Congress," Heitkamp says. "Not a lot of them, right? Farm Bill -- led by a woman. WRDA, the Water Resources Development Act -- led by a woman. The budget in the Senate -- led by a woman. So go and take a look at what you think are the top 10 achievements in the last Congress. I'd suggest you find a woman behind almost every one of them."

Often, it's more than one woman working together. The first bill Warren worked on in the Senate was a fishing bill with Murkowski. Heitkamp also worked with Murkowski across party lines on a bill to improve the welfare of Native American children.

A recent study by the Internet startup Quorum found that the average female senator co-sponsored 171 bills across the aisle, while the average male senator shared sponsorship with a member of the opposing party for 130. Women senators co-sponsor more than six bills on average with other women, versus four bills the men co-sponsor with other men.

Those statistics don't just happen: Senior Senate women intentionally cultivate a collaborative spirit through social events and mentorship. "Women get together and get to know one another as women first -- as sisters, as daughters, as mothers -- and share commonalities that might not be legislation-related," Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, says of her colleagues. "And through that relationship, we are able to build a strong willingness to find common ground. And that's why any bill I've ever passed, I've had a strong Republican woman helping me."

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In one of her first days on the Senate floor earlier this year, newly elected West Virginia Republican Shelley Moore Capito says she was approached by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein. "I had never met her," says Capito. "She's kind of iconic. She has been doing it for so long and has such stature in the Senate, and she introduces herself, and then she says, 'We're gonna have dinner and I'm hosting, and make sure you come.'"

The Senate women's dinners are off-the-record, quarterly social affairs. Thanks to the dinners, says Heitkamp, "I feel like I know the women Republican senators -- now there's two that I'm trying to set up meetings with -- much better than I know, with the exception of maybe a couple, the male Republican senators. And it makes you more likely to approach them." Senators say their cooperation and support bring not only personal benefits but professional advantages as well.

What it hasn't brought is the national spotlight. With the possible exception of Warren, the women of the Senate don't tend to get the buzz some of the men do.

When the Murray-Ryan budget bill went to the president's desk, some of the female senators felt that Murray didn't get her fair share of the credit. "How many times people have said to me, 'Why is it that everybody's saying, Thank god Paul Ryan was in on this one,'" Murray says. "It's true. You know, I don't think any of us come here to have the credit. We really have the motivation to accomplish things and get things done, and trophies and awards and getting mentioned all the time isn't the reward that means something to any of us."

"Only in Washington, D.C., do three men standing around talking beat two women who actually file a bill," says Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, referring to the fact that several of her male colleagues held multiple press conferences about climate change while she and Collins penned legislation. "But that's the environment here. A lot of press will just follow that kind of blustery speech every day, and I just don't think the women are that into that."

The fact that women tend to keep their heads down may be a conscious choice, and one many of the senators say appeals to constituents. Says Baldwin, "I can get more done if I do it outside the limelight than if I've made a hundred pledges on the nightly news." It also may make them more likable in the eyes of voters. Research suggests that both men and women may be less likely to support female candidates if those candidates are perceived as power-seeking; male candidates don't see similar penalties. Working behind the scenes instead of stumping for credit might help female senators meet the demands of voters without alienating them.

But that quiet efficiency has a downside. National recognition shores up opportunities to ascend the ranks and be tapped for positions like the presidency and vice presidency, not to mention financial and political support for reelection. (Heitkamp cites the recent midterm defeat of former Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat: "Sometimes you can't overcome trends, but ... she didn't get the kind of credit that she really deserved for how hard she worked for Louisiana.")

Policy-focused visibility impacts the electoral pipeline too. When female politicians get more coverage for their personality than their positions, other women notice: The perception that women face media bias is a major reason many of them don't run for office.

"I think it's important that women get credit where credit is due," says Senator Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii. "While it's all very nice to say, 'We really don't need to take credit,' please. I think women are not given enough credit, and women out there need to know that women here can get things done."

Given the land mines, maybe it's no surprise that women tread more carefully in the halls of Congress, which have long been dominated by men. In the history of the Senate, only 46 women have served -- with 20 of them serving now. The year 1992 was triumphantly deemed "the year of the woman" when four were elected.

"There was skepticism about whether we were up to the job," says Democrat Barbara Mikulski, who was elected to the Senate from Maryland in 1986. On the campaign trail, reporters talked about her opponent's positions before turning to her appearance. "They'd say three points he made, she says. "And then they'd say, 'Barbara Mikulski: short, chunky, feisty, with a ruffled hairdo." She adds, "I do have good ideas and bad hair. My head is used for other things."

Once she was in office, Mikulski says, "the whole architecture" was made for men. She had to ask permission to wear trousers on the Senate floor and caused a minor scandal when she donned a pantsuit. The Senate gym pool was all male. South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond was notoriously grabby to the point where women would avoid getting into elevators alone with him. There was no women's bathroom.

"I remember when I went to give my first speech on the floor," Mikulski says. "You're there in history. And you think, I've gone where few women have gone before, and you're all ready. And then you stand up, and the podium comes up to here" -- she gestures to her forehead -- "because you're 4-feet-11."

Mikulski had a special step stool made for her so that she doesn't disappear behind daises built for male speakers.

When Democrat Barbara Boxer, now one of two female senators from California, first ran for elected office in 1972, "Even my next-door neighbor said that she couldn't vote for me because I had two young kids," she says. "And this was a part-time job as a county supervisor seven minutes from my house."

When Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan, won a seat on the county board of commissioners in 1975, the opponent she bested referred to her as "that young broad." When she tried to secure funding to open the county's first domestic violence shelter, she received threats.

The romantic lives of female politicians were particular points of suspicion. "When I first ran, I was very young and attractive," Feinstein says. "Women used to look at me and say, 'What's wrong with her?' I could see it on their faces -- 'She must have a bad marriage. Why is she doing this?'"

Those attitudes are mostly in the past, senators say. "When I walk out here and walk down the hall, it's not "Hi, woman senator," it's "Hi, Senator," Capito says.

"I think that whatever gender biases there might have been are gone."

Other senators say that biases still exist, but that they're more subtle. "There's overt and not-overt sexism," Murray says. "I think that a lot of women would tell you what they've seen happen is that when men are not used to women being at a table to negotiate. If a woman says something, a guy will say it later, and everybody references the guy that said it." She adds, "I still sit in committee hearings as the only woman in the room. I've been at the White House and been the only woman at the table. So we still have a long way to go."

"I do not think the Senate is full of sexism," says Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri. "Now, are there a few people who have not yet grasped the fact where we're never going back to a point in time when the men are swimming naked in the pool in the Senate gym or when the women's bathroom gets smaller? Yeah, there are a few. But by and large, I think my colleagues have seen that we are people who work hard and contribute, and in the long run, they want to be our allies."

More women in elected office, the senators say, means policies that are more reflective of the American public itself, more innovation, and less of the same. "Diversity in life experiences is still relevant," Heitkamp says. "You put 60-, 70-year-old white guys in a room and ask them to make decisions, which is what we've had for the last 200 years, are they gonna come up with new ideas?"

Simply having women in the room, as Hirono notes, can change both the discussion and the outcomes. One example: sexual assault in the military, which was a documented problem for decades before Senate women finally turned up the heat. Beginning in 2013, the Senate Armed Services Committee included a record seven female members, who put forward several pieces of legislation to address sexual violence, including bills by Gillibrand and McCaskill.

"We come with a different set of experiences that we bring to the floor," says Hirono, who sits on the committee. "I do not think that that issue would have been what it was if there were not seven women on that committee pushing it."

Other examples abound. In February, all 20 female senators called for a hearing on human trafficking. That same month, McCaskill introduced a bill to combat sexual assault on college campuses, co-sponsoring it with Republicans Ayotte and Capito and Democrats Gillibrand, Boxer, Shaheen, and Stabenow. Senators, including Boxer and Gillibrand, have long been pushing legislation to help women pay for child care or at least get a tax break. In his most recent State of the Union, President Barack Obama brought the issue of day care to the forefront of the national conversation.

Of course, that doesn't mean the female experience is universal. "We don't agree on every subject any more than men agree because they're men," Stabenow says. "That's a very positive thing."

"We don't agree. We span the ideological spectrum," Collins says. "But as women, we bring life experiences that men don't have to the table, and that is valuable for legislating and it's valuable for America."

And yet the Senate remains far from resembling the nation. Only six senators are members of racial and ethnic minorities. And while the number of female senators has been rising over the years (leading to the first-ever traffic jam in the women's bathroom, notes Klobuchar), the United States ranks 72nd in women's representation in national parliaments, sandwiched alongside Panama between the Czech Republic and Kenya. And that means, for all their gains, female senators remain something of an anomaly. It will be nice, they say, when their presence is not so notable.

"What I'm looking forward to," Shaheen says, "is when my grandchildren don't have a story like this written about them because they're women."

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