Elizabeth Holtzman represented New York’s 16th congressional district from 1973 to 1981. She was also elected district attorney of Brooklyn and comptroller of New York City. She practices law in New York.

In 1972, when I first ran for Congress, my rival mocked my campaign against him as an attempt to topple the Washington Monument with a toothpick. The local Democratic political “boss” sneeringly dismissed me and my supporters as “Holtzman and her squaws.” A major newspaper headline called me a “wispy challenger,” focusing on my height and weight instead of the substance of my platform.

At the time, I was 31 years old, and that was seen as a perfectly normal way to talk about a woman running for office.


I ended up toppling the “Washington Monument”—an 84-year old incumbent—and in winning that race, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. There were barely any women on Capitol Hill at the time—I was one of 16 in the House, and there were none in the Senate—and over the two decades I served in elective office, I continually butted up against a glass ceiling. Even worse, I confronted an entire political system and culture that devalued women and discriminated against them in ways both obvious and subtle.

I encountered a “Congressmembers only” establishment in the Capitol that didn’t let in congresswomen. I had voters tell me that certain elected offices were inappropriate “for a woman.” I saw a powerful official complain about me in the press, saying that I “couldn’t get over being a woman.” I bore the brunt of persistent media attacks, some of which were jaw-droppingly sexist.

In the 1970s and ’80s, to be a professional woman working in the political arena—or working in any field, really—was to know discrimination and sexism, to be underestimated and undervalued.

Which is why June 7, 2016, was such an extraordinary moment in American history. That night, I watched as Hillary Clinton, whose career started not long after mine—and intersected with mine during the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon—became a major party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Women who lived through the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s see the possibility of a female president for what it is: a seismically meaningful shift for our country.

In the days and weeks since then, the media has noted in passing the historic nature of her impending nomination. But many people—young women included—don’t see this as a big deal. The fact of her candidacy is met with the equivalent of a collective shrug. And I can understand why younger Americans may feel this way—if you are 29 years old or younger, you’ve never voted in a presidential election in which both parties’ candidates were white men. You’ve seen examples of women’s success—as Supreme Court justices, Cabinet secretaries, and heads of foreign countries—and it may seem that gender discrimination is a thing of the past.

But those of us who lived through the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s—especially those of us who were working women during those decades—see the possibility of a female president for what it is: a seismically meaningful shift for our country in the direction of justice.

To have a woman as president could open the doors of representative democracy to ever-more women—it could mean the formation of a government that looks much more like the country. That has important, real-world implications. I know this firsthand: I was a woman in government during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, and know what a difference it made.

***

By the time I ran against him, Emanuel Celler had represented Brooklyn in Congress for 50 years. He was an institution—the most senior member of the House of Representatives and the chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. A Democrat, he had been instrumental in passing key civil rights bills in the 1960s, but opposed equality for women. He balked at adding “sex” to the protected classes in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He sought to bottle up the Equal Rights Amendment, refusing to hold committee hearings on the proposal and forcing Michigan Congresswoman Martha Griffiths to use a discharge petition to move it out of his committee. “Neither the National Woman’s Party nor the delightful, delectable and dedicated gentlelady from Michigan can change nature,” Celler said, disparaging both the ERA and Griffiths.

When I decided to run for the House, I was a young woman. I had never run for public office before. The only elected experience I had was serving as an official within the Democratic Party, and to win that, I had to defeat Brooklyn’s Democratic machine. No established organization—no women’s group, no labor union, no anti-war group—gave me any political support. I raised a total of $36,000 (today, such a race would cost more than $2 million). My cause appeared hopeless.

After I won the primary, my opponent tried to delegitimize my victory, asking for a recount, then alleging voting irregularities, and requesting a new primary as a do-over.

Still, the Vietnam War was raging, and I was running on an anti-war platform. Relying on shoe leather and the support of local volunteers, I was able to overcome long odds, and won the Democratic primary. Congressman Celler tried to delegitimize my victory, asking for a recount, then alleging voting irregularities (even though his supporters controlled the entire election apparatus), and requesting a new primary as a do-over. I had won fairly, and the courts threw out Celler’s challenge.

That November, I became the youngest woman elected to Congress in American history, a record I held for 42 years, until 2014, when Elise Stefanik, a fellow New Yorker, broke that record. It was—and remains—extremely difficult for young women to compete for Congress. The enormous costs of running create a special obstacle for young women, who generally lack both the financial independence and the wealthy contacts that make it easier to run. And there is still a sense that they lack the gravitas or heft to represent a district in Washington, especially on issues like national security.

When I arrived in Washington in January 1973, the reality of what I would confront as a woman hit home. Only a handful of women served in the House (16 out of 435), and not one woman was in the Senate. In the whole history of the United States, only one woman had ever chaired a House committee. Congresswomen were not even allowed in the congressional gym, a central hub for networking and deal making which remained closed to women for another decade.

When I took office in January 1973, there were 16 women in the House and zero women in the Senate.

In some cases, we were put down, our voices discounted and our districts disadvantaged. Shirley Chisholm, who in 1968 had become the first African-American woman elected to Congress, was assigned to the House Agriculture Committee even though she represented a Brooklyn district without any cows, crops or even many blades of grass. Bella Abzug, the outspoken Manhattan congresswoman, was openly ridiculed: Congressmen whipping up votes would say Bella was voting yes, which signaled that everyone else should vote no. Pat Schroeder, elected from Denver in 1972, got the green light to run for her seat only because party elders thought it was unwinnable for a Democrat. In 1973, when Barbara Jordan and I were appointed to serve on the House Judiciary Committee, we were the first Democratic women in history to do so. Once, when I was given the gavel and allowed to preside temporarily over the House, I was addressed as Mr. Speaker by a House member. I had to correct him, establishing a precedent that a woman in the chair of the House was to be addressed as Madam Speaker. (It took around 30 more years before the first woman was elected speaker of the House.)

President Gerald Ford signing a proclamation on Women's Equality Day, August 22, 1974. Standing behind him (left–right) are Congresswomen Yvonne Brathwait Burke (D-CA), Barbara Jordan (D-TX), Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY), Marjorie S. Holt (R-MD), Leonor K. Sullivan (D-MO), Cardiss Collins (D-IL), Corinne Boggs (D-LA), Margaret Heckler (R-MA), Bella Abzug (D-NY), and Shirley Chisholm (D-NY). | The U.S. National Archives

Finally, a Republican congresswoman, Margaret Heckler of Massachusetts, and I decided to form a caucus of women in Congress, but whether we would succeed was far from certain. Many congresswomen feared joining, worrying that they would be attacked for working on “women’s issues.” Ultimately, the caucus was created, and every congresswoman—Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal—joined. The clout of this tiny band of women helped spur important reforms, including legislation strengthening the privacy of rape victims (who previously would have had to suffer cross-examination on the stand that delved into their entire past sexual history). We even extended the deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

The main question the article raised about me was how I would look in a low-cut evening gown. No such qualification had ever been set for a man.”

In 1980, after eight years in the House, I decided to run for the Senate. The personal attacks in the press started in earnest. The worst example occurred when the New York Times Magazine wrote about the four Democratic candidates in the New York primary. The main question the article raised about me was how I would look in a low-cut evening gown. No such qualification had ever been set for a man.

Although I won the primary—and became the first woman in New York history to win a major party’s nomination for Senate—I lost the general election in a three-way race. As in my first run for Congress, several labor unions, including the AFL-CIO, did not support me, while the teachers’ union endorsed only days before the election, with scarcely enough time to make a difference. Major Democratic elected officials refused to endorse me. Even though I had amassed a very strong record of accomplishment in the House, the support that any male candidate could expect as the Democratic nominee for Senate was just unavailable to me.

A 1980 New York Senate debate. Liz Holtzman looks on as Liberal Party candidate Jacob Javits (center) and Republican Al D’Amato argue; October 19, 1980. | NY Post/Getty Images | Getty Images

***

After the election, I weighed my options. New York City’s elections were coming up the following year, and because the incumbent Brooklyn District Attorney was not seeking reelection, people urged me to run as his successor. Having represented Brooklyn in Congress for eight years and waged a high-profile race for Senate, many of my supporters assumed that the race would be relatively easy.

It wasn’t: people couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of a woman as district attorney.

We can’t vote for you now. DA is not a job for a woman. It’s too tough; there’s too much pressure.”

When I started campaigning, voters were glad to see me. “Liz, we like you and we voted for you in the past,” they’d say, their smiles giving way to doubt. “But we can’t vote for you now. DA is not a job for a woman. It’s too tough; there’s too much pressure.” I was taken aback. Obviously, participating in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon involved plenty of pressure. But I quickly realized “pressure” wasn’t the real reason.

My nominal opponent was a political unknown. I wasn’t actually running against him, I was running against voters’ image of a DA—and it didn’t look like me, it looked like Perry Mason. (I think Hillary Clinton faces this problem, too. It is hard for some people to move past their preconceived image that the president should be a man, or to reject the idea that the job of a U.S. president is too tough to be filled by a woman.)

My opponent in the race played the DA-should-be-a-man card for all it was worth, running an attack campaign against me that was, frankly, sexist. In one of his radio ads, a woman’s voice addressed listeners: “Liz Holtzman—she’s a very nice girl. I might like her for my daughter, but not DA.” The spot resonated with the voters and was politically devastating. As a result, although I won the election, it was by an extremely narrow margin. Image had almost defeated reality. Still, I had become the first woman elected DA in New York City. Four years later, I was easily reelected—I no longer had to run against the idea that district attorney was a “man’s job”—but it took more than 30 years before another woman was elected DA in New York City.

“Liz Holtzman—she’s a very nice girl,” went one attack ad. “I might like her for my daughter, but not DA.”

As DA, I again found myself in an environment hostile to women. I worked hard to revise rape laws: at the time, a woman couldn’t legally be raped unless she put up what was known as “earnest resistance”—i.e., fought back, even though that might put her life at risk. Later, my office successfully challenged the law exempting husbands from prosecution for marital rape (previously, if a husband raped his wife, it was not a criminal act; not until 1993 did all 50 states recognize marital rape as a crime).

Female attorneys faced routine harassment and discrimination not only from their male counterparts, but from the court system as well. I was informed that during one plea conference, a male judge told a particularly buxom prosecutor that he and his clerk were curious whether she wore weights on her ankles to keep from tipping over. On a scorching hot summer day, another female prosecutor asked a judge for permission to remove her jacket (a courtesy he had granted a male attorney in the same courtroom); the judge replied that she shouldn’t remove her jacket unless she intended to take off all her clothes.

The judge made the victim in a rape case get on her hands and knees in the courtroom and reenact her rape.

Probably the most galling incident I heard about occurred when a judge made the victim in a rape case get on her hands and knees in the courtroom and reenact her rape. The assistant district attorney who witnessed the incident and reported it was troubled about what happened. So was I. No victim should be further victimized in this fashion, especially not in a court of law. I complained to a commission that had been created to examine the status of women in the courts, and requested appropriate action. In response, a storm erupted—not against the judge, but against me. In violation of prior case law—and the First Amendment—I was formally chastised for publicly criticizing the judge (a man who was not long thereafter removed from the bench for lying to the FBI). The testimony of the ADA who had witnessed the rape reenactment was deemed unreliable for the absurd reason that he had never tried a case. (Using that standard in normal criminal cases would disqualify almost every witness.) The deck was stacked against women, particularly women who stood up for themselves or challenged the system.

The chief judge of the Brooklyn Supreme Court complained to a major New York newspaper that I “couldn’t get over being a woman.” I guess what riled him was my appointing a number of women as bureau chiefs—they had been routinely passed over for promotion before, and were, I believe, the first such appointments ever made in New York City. When I noticed that there were no female detectives serving on the detail that provided personal protection and asked that women be included, the police captain stalled and tried to avoid appointing one. When I insisted, he told me that this was “a matter of life and death,” meaning that a female detective couldn’t be trusted to protect me. I said that since it was my life at stake, I would risk it, and a woman was assigned. I survived, and so did she.

The chief judge of the Brooklyn Supreme Court complained to a major New York newspaper that I ‘couldn’t get over being a woman.’”

In 1990, I ran for New York City comptroller, and became the first woman elected to that position. Here I found some of the same problems I encountered as DA. There were almost no women in the top echelon (I changed that, appointing more women to top jobs), and a number of the government’s policies and practices were oblivious to the needs of women (for instance, New York City-owned hospitals refused to offer screening mammograms, even for women at high risk of breast cancer, a policy I was able to change).

Anita Hill testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings; October 11, 1991. | AP Photos

As comptroller, I unexpectedly found myself involved in the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings on Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court. That October, law professor Anita Hill testified before the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee that Thomas, her former boss at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, had sexually harassed her. Thomas vigorously disputed the charges. From my tenure as DA, I knew that a single charge of sexual harassment generally meant that there were other victims who hadn’t come forward. Were there any in this case? If so, where were they? An assistant district attorney who had worked for me called to inform me about another female EEOC employee who had privately claimed Thomas harassed her, but had not come forward publicly. I asked a lawyer on my staff to contact the woman, which she did; the woman recounted her complaint about Thomas, and it sounded very credible.

We called the Senate Judiciary Committee and the office of at least one U.S. senator and told them about this second victim. To our dismay, nobody called the potential witness. Clearly, the Judiciary Committee did not want to fully investigate the possible mistreatment of women by a Supreme Court nominee. And clearly, they didn’t think that sexual harassment was a serious offense: At that time, a woman’s rights to bodily autonomy and dignity were too insignificant and unimportant. The full truth never came out, and Thomas became a justice on our highest court, where he still sits.

***

In the 25 years since the Thomas hearings and the 44 years since I was elected to Congress, much has changed for women. Sexual harassment is more routinely treated with the gravity it deserves. Violence against women is being seriously confronted in both the military and across college campuses. Sexist comments by judges more often garner outrage and trigger official reprimand. The list goes on.

But women, especially young women, still face substantial obstacles in the political sphere. Right now, of the 435 members of the House, only 84 are women; in the 100-member Senate, just 20 are women. And that matters not just because an ambitious and qualified woman should be able to advance as far as an ambitious and qualified man, but because politics is about policy. Politics helps determine the kind of society we’d like to live in. And when women are not included in that conversation, or when they’re marginalized or drastically underrepresented, it has real-world consequences for our society, for women and our families.

Politics helps determine the kind of society we’d like to live in. When women aren’t an equal participant in that conversation, it has real-world consequences.

All of which is why Secretary Clinton’s accession to the presidency could have huge significance for our country. She knows the barriers—lack of equal pay, equal promotional opportunity, paid family leave, lack of adequate day care, etc.—that need to be removed for all women to get ahead. Her victory will encourage women and girls to reach for their full potential. It will validate the talent and ability of women to our whole population, and indeed to the world. It will renew the sense that America still is a country of promise for all its people.

And it will, I hope, end any notion that being a woman is something one needs to “get over.” Being a woman is part of one’s identity; it is something to celebrate, not deride.