In Houston, when women of a certain age are invited to Sissy Farenthold’s to drink tea and talk politics, they don’t say no.

Farenthold, one of only three women in her 1949 University of Texas law school class, was the first woman to represent her county in the Texas legislature, in 1968, and became an anti-corruption crusader in the institution. In 1972, she was the runner-up in the Democratic primary run-off for Texas governor.

And at the 1972 Democratic National Convention, she was the first woman to have her name put into nomination for the vice-presidential nod, 12 years before Geraldine Ferraro and 36 years before Sarah Palin. (Yes, that was her on the cover of Ms with Shirley Chisholm in January 1973.)

Now 89 years old, she’s still involved in politics, traveling to Washington now and again and working with the local League of Women Voters – but when she played hostess to some of Houston’s other politically active senior women, she nonetheless made sure the finger sandwiches were artfully arranged on a painted plate instead of the plastic serving dishes provided by the catering company.



Standards are important in Texas, even in 2016.

As women mingled in the party room of Farenthold’s Houston high-rise, nibbling on cookies and drinking lemonade, the lack of standards or decency in modern politics was a common complaint. Sitting in an easy chair, Suzanne Brinsmade, 81, who was one of the original editors of Seventeen magazine, didn’t want to specify her political leanings, did admit that her mother was a Republican. Still, she said: “There is no reason for people, like certain nominees for our presidency, to be doing what they’re doing [in terms of stoking anti-Muslim sentiment]. This is a country of freedom.”

She continued: “They’re trying to turn people against one another, because of religion, because of lifestyles, of all these things, it should be inexcusable. Freedom is part of our legacy.”

Patsy Cravens, 80, a photographer and descendent of the Cullinan oil family whose father had to petition the courts to “undisable” her in order to allow her to own property while she was married, agreed. “The hatred that is being grown, fed, is just disgusting to me,” she said.

Architect and sustainable designer, Deborah Morris said: “I hate divisiveness. Hate is a strong word, but I think all the polarization of races and creeds and ethnic extractions and everybody, I think we have become a terribly intolerant world.”

“People are fearful,” she added “and they’re constantly being egged on and provoked by people that would have us be afraid.”

The first transgender judge in the US, Phyllis Frye, 68, was there, too, and a little bit scared for the future herself if a Republican is elected president. “As an LGBT activist, and as being transgender myself, all of the advances that have been made in the last thirty years for our protection could all be rolled back.” She had already fought once for the right to use the correct bathroom, more than 30 years ago, and Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, had recently announced his intention to wade into the transgender restroom rights war.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Phyllis Frye, the first transgender judge in the US. Photograph: Bastien Inzaurralde/The Guardian

“I was going to say what Phyllis said,” said Ann Robison, 59, who runs an LGBT community center. “So I will go even more globally and say respect, civility and dignity. I think that things have devolved so badly. We don’t see each other’s positions, we don’t even listen to each other.

“I feel myself being so much more anxious, depressed and stressed because I don’t listen to the news anymore – and I’m a news junkie. I don’t listen to the news, I don’t want to read it, I don’t want to hear it, because I’m going to hear that vitriol and it isn’t solving problems, it isn’t moving us forward, it’s holding us back.”

In another corner of the room, retired teacher Lydia Velasquez, 69, and fourth-generation Houstonian Dorothy Farrington Caram, 83, one-time teacher and a retired administor from the University of Houston, were talking about the failures of education policy.

“What is wrong? All this testing that’s being given to the students and teachers teaching the test instead of teaching regular courses like we used to,” Velasquez said, asserting that teachers are now expected to be “teaching to the test primarily, the whole semester, the whole year”.

“I tend to agree that we lost the idea that we have to develop the child, from really pre-kindergarten on,” said Farrington Caram. “And now we rely too much on the [test] results.”

By the doors to the pool deck, Mary Bacon, 86, and Frye were swapping legal war stories. Bacon had dropped out of college in her younger years to get married and have four children but eventually finished both her bachelor’s degree and a law degree, went into private practice and became a lawyer, then a judge. “I was interrupted in a trial when some attorney would say to the woman on the stand ‘And you don’t work, do you?’” she said. “We took judicial notice that women with children work.”

“You were on the bench and somebody said that?” asked Frye incredulously.

“Oh, yeah,” said Bacon.

Out on the pool deck, Lee T Loe, a retired social worker and long-time peace activist, was holding forth on war, peace and the soon-to-be Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. “I have a T-shirt that says ‘nonviolence or nonexistence’ and I really believe that,” she said. “We can’t have wars because it destroys the environment. There’s no choice! I don’t care how bad the other guy is, shake hands with him and take your guns and go home.”

Like Farenthold, Loe was no automatic fan of Clinton’s. “Sure, we want women to be in power – I had four daughters and three granddaughters, and I really feel that strongly – but not Madeleine Albright, who says it’s all right to kill thousands and thousands of children in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“That’s not the kind of woman I want ... They says she’s strong? It would be very hard to respect.”

“I’m a Bernie person,” nodded Farenthold. “And I don’t see it just as the selection [of him as a nominee]. I’d like to think it’s something comparable to the progressive movement that took place in the early 20th century, whether we have the critical mass, which I think at the moment we have, and whether that will continue is the question.”

She added: “I’m very grateful that Bernie Sanders ran, because it’s brought a coalition together that wouldn’t have been there without him. I will certainly support Mrs Clinton in due course.”

Back inside, as the other women milled around, artist Tralene Vassilopoulos, 70, was talking to Priscilla Atwood, a retired registered nurse who insisted with a smile that she was “29” (but admitted she was born in 1942), and Rogene Gee Calvert, 67, who works at a public relations firm.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rogene Gee Calvert holds a sign reading ‘income disparity’, the election issue most important to her. Photograph: Bastien Inzaurralde/The Guardian

“One that really stands out to me right now is the mass incarceration of so many people across the nation, for so many ridiculous things,” said Atwood. “It just tears apart families, it ruins people’s livelihoods, their careers and their jobs, it just is incredible how bad it is. It’s awful.

“I think we need to get more people involved in the process, more people voting, and all our young people,” said Vassilopoulos. “I’ve heard recently in some meetings I’ve been to, the young people aren’t getting registered. They’re supposed to be registered by law here in Texas by their principal of their school.”

“I certainly see the middle class shrinking, and that gap is getting larger,” said Calvert. “I just see people working harder and for less and not realizing any getting ahead.”

“Unfortunately, I think that this generation, the kids are worse off than their parents,” she added. “It’s not like the American dream, where you work hard and you did better than your parents. It’s going backwards. I don’t think [the media] gets into that much. I don’t know, it’s not sexy, I guess. It is complicated. It’s not like there’s a simple answer.”



Vassilopoulos said: “The media is all about entertainment.”

“I don’t think they sell too many papers or get too many advertisements because of their coverage of income inequality,” said Calvert.

“It seems like [the media] just wastes a lot of time on garbage,” added Atwood.