The Legacy of Madeleine Kunin

–A Roadmap for Redefining Power

By Rickey Gard Diamond

The Honorable Madeleine May Kunin, February 2005, "Politics is fun. That's not talked about very much."

photo credit Margaret Michniewicz

Governor Madeleine Kunin wrote Vermont Woman a letter of congratulations when we first began publishing in September of 1985. Those were exciting times with lots of women’s “firsts.” We counted ourselves among the first generation of publications to be owned and run by women. Earlier that same year, Kunin had been inaugurated the first woman Governor in Vermont.

We were immensely proud of the Governor’s support then and continue today to aspire to her wish for us, to provide information and support for “the indomitable spirit” of Vermont women. In this interview, twenty years after she first wrote that letter of encouragement, Rickey Gard Diamond asked Madeleine Kunin to look back and reflect on her legacy.

Vermont Woman

You open your memoir, Living a Political Life, with your decision not to run for a fourth gubernatorial term. By then you’d served for 17 years, first as a Representative from Burlington, then as Lt. Governor and Governor. The question you say you continually faced was whether you were “as strong as a man.” Do you think your successors, Governors Snelling, Dean, and Douglas, have faced comparisons to the standard you set as a woman, building a more inclusive and egalitarian government?

Madeleine Kunin

I think we did set a standard. Definitely for appointing women. Governor Dean kept a lot of the women that I had appointed. I haven’t added up the numbers of women in the Douglas administration. I don’t think it’s as high as Dean’s record, but it certainly has become more commonplace to have women serve in top positions in government. You know, in 1984, when I was elected, there were a whole group of women who were eminently qualified, but still their credentials were different from the men who had preceded them. What I was able to do was broaden the definition of qualifications.

Vermont Woman

What do you mean by “different credentials?”

Madeleine Kunin

Consider Betsy Costle, for instance. She took time off to have children before she went back to law school. So there were these blank years in her resume. She was home raising her children. Some people might look at that as wasted time, or non-productive time, but that was simply a stage that so many women go through. And you learn skills as a parent and as a part of a volunteer community.

Mollie Beattie had no administrative experience when she was appointed to head Forests, Parks and Recreation, but she was an excellent forester and turned out later to head the federal Fish & Wildlife administration. Gretchen Morse, I knew her as an excellent legislator, and I’d watched her. I’d watched her shepherd a bill and I knew her as a person. She turned out to be a great Secretary of Health and Human Services. So I just took some chances, and all of the chances I took were rewarded by some outstanding people. Women often bring different backgrounds than their male equivalents because of interruptions in their lives. They might not have a lot of administrative background on their resumes, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be good administrators.

On May 3, 1982, Lt. Governor Madeleine Kunin announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Governor.

Courtesy Vermont Historical Society

Vermont Woman

You talk about that in your book, the role family life played in your own development for living a political life. I love your idea that politics is nothing more than taking your personal experience and transforming it into a public agenda. You’ve been teaching at UVM and St. Michael’s most recently. What of young people’s experience needs to become part of a public agenda?

Madeleine Kunin

Each generation has to set its own agenda. I think some of the issues keep coming back, though. We still haven’t solved some of the issues that were there 20 years ago, like childcare. There’s still a scarcity of good childcare. It’s always up to the woman

to find it. The whole issue of violence against women is still powerful. And economic issues are important for women, as women are in the workforce to stay now, most of them. So I look at my students and it’s hard to know. I think they don’t realize the battles we fought; they assume a lot of freedoms and opportunities they have are just there. They don’t think feminism is an issue.

I do see a level of self-confidence and a level of ambition that my generation didn’t have, and I think that’s exciting. It’s become so mainstream. Young women do think they’ll do something significant with their lives. What none of us knew before hand, for those of us who had children, was that this would be complicated!

Vermont Woman

[Laughter] True. That’s linked to another question. When you were first elected to the House, it was 1972. You were a mother of four, and at the time there were 17 women in the  Legislature. Do you think it’s easier or harder for women to be elected today?

Madeleine Kunin

Oh, easier!

Vermont Woman

That was part of what you said you wanted as your legacy, you wanted to encourage women to serve in public office.

Madeleine Kunin

Yes. There’s Gaye Symington, for instance, elected as Speaker of the House, and getting very high marks for her role as Speaker. Consuelo Northrop Bailey did it 50 years ago, so it took another 50 years to repeat her achievement, but still 33% of the Vermont Legislature today is female.

Vermont Woman

That’s among the highest rates in the nation.

Madeleine Kunin

Double check that. There are other states that have high rates, too, like Washington. [A former reporter with The Burlington Free Press, Gov. Kunin is right: Seven states have a third women in their state legislatures: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Washington and Vermont. Delaware has 33.9% and Maryland has 34%.]

In fact, there’s an interesting contrast between red states and blue states, with blue states averaging 22 percent women and red states closer to 10 percent.

I think the doors are wide open. I really think there is no gender issue in the state legislatures. I don’t think there is a major gender issue in the Congress, even though we only have 14% women there.  I think the biggest obstacle to electing more women to Congress is money and incumbency. When 98% of the members of Congress get re-elected, there’s not much hope for any newcomer, in terms of the system. I think the family issues are still tougher for women politicians, especially if you have to move or commute. The biggest question comes up when you talk about the presidency. People still ask whether a woman can be president, as if it would take a miracle! So many other countries have had women presidents, countries that are much less democratic than we are.

I think the family issues are still tougher for women politicians, especially if you have to move or commute.

The hardest part for women politicians at the national level is the question of national security. A woman has to be tough to inspire confidence on national security. It’s just instinctively a male issue. Look at Condoleezza Rice. She can manage it because she is tough and conservative. She handles herself very well. But it’s harder for a progressive woman to step into those shoes. But in some cases, on some issues, women have an advantage: healthcare, education, the environment. Admittedly those are the “softer” issues, but they are also issues that people care a lot about.

Vermont Woman

It’s funny the way we use these terms, “softer,” and associate that quality with women, the same way you describe our associating men with security.

Madeleine Kunin

Yes, and studies show that men and women think this way.

Vermont Woman

You compared politics to a game of chess. As much as you wanted to believe that consensus and negotiation and collaboration were more valuable than confrontation, from the beginning, your political life was a battle. It had to be, you said. Do you think this has changed at all?

Madeleine Kunin

I think it’s gotten nastier. Certainly on the national level. It’s gotten tougher in Vermont, too, but nowhere near as difficult as it is nationally and internationally. There’s more partisanship, more divisiveness—like the whole division into red states and blues states, that being a part of our vocabulary now.

Vermont Woman

That’s why the question about whether you thought it was harder or easier to run.

Madeleine Kunin

It’s easier because women are no longer the “firsts.” It’s always harder to be first, and there are more role models now. It is somewhat harder because money has become a bigger issue and conflict has become a bigger issue. What surprises me nationally is that the figure has been 22% for the last six years. It hasn’t gone up, it’s just stagnant.

Vermont Woman

Like a glass ceiling?

Madeleine Kunin

Yes, it hasn’t gone up. The idea was that every year you’d add up a little more, but that hasn’t happened. Where we have seen some change is with women cabinet members. What’s interesting is Condoleezza Rice following Madeleine Albright, and there was no open debate about her being a woman and no open debate about her being African-American. So regardless of what you think about her views on Iraq and Iran, that’s an achievement.

Vermont Woman

It has seemed to some of us that in the 20 years since your administration, there’s been a rush to saying, yes, of course, women are equal now, without giving credit to accomplishments you and your team brought about. At times, I’ve felt slighted on your behalf. Have you ever felt this?

Madeleine Kunin

I don’t feel slighted. At this point in my life I don’t need public applause. I’ve moved on. But I do feel that perhaps there isn’t enough recognition of some of the changes we did make and of the women who did serve. You never know what’s going to last in politics. Different times produce different analysis.

I felt satisfaction the other day, in a class I taught at UVM. There was an older woman who was a Reach Up graduate. Reach Up was a welfare reform bill that we passed that enabled her to go back to school. And meeting her and hearing her story gave me a thrill. People talk about the Vermont Housing & Conservation Trust Fund, which we started, and I know that’s done some good things, in terms of preserving open farmland and affordable housing. So that’s the sort of satisfaction I gain. Who knows how things will look a hundred years from now? Sometimes it takes more time to look back.

Vermont Woman

That brings up another interesting thing you’ve said about the seduction of power. Do you see this at work in the political landscape today?

Madeleine Kunin

Sure. Anyone who has held a position of power is reluctant to give it up. It gives you a platform, a voice, and that gives you a sense of who you are in the world, a sense of potentially having an impact on events. But I always wanted to reserve part of myself as a private person, too. I never wanted my whole self-image to depend on the next election. Now I enjoy having a voice by doing commentaries on public radio, through teaching, and the NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) I founded, The Institute for Sustainable Communities. So there are lots of ways of having an impact.

I had an impact as Ambassador to Switzerland, addressing the whole question of the Holocaust victims and their bank accounts in Swiss banks. That was a new challenge. I had to come to terms with my Jewish identity, my Swiss past. You can have an impact in an appointed position.

Vermont Woman

There was another appointed position. You had been “the education governor” in Vermont and then came to Washington as Deputy Director of Education.

Madeleine Kunin

I compare it to being the big fish in a small pond, to becoming a small fish in big pond. That was a very exciting time, being part of Washington in the Clinton administration. I learned a tremendous amount about this country. Vermont is not representative of the United States when it comes to education. I was at first deeply shocked by what I saw of the poverty in many areas of the country. Not just little pockets, but most urban areas have extreme poverty for children. I was exposed to a world I had never seen. But then I also saw some wonderful schools, even in poor areas. The contrast between the suburban and the urban schools made me feel it was so unjust. This is one of the reasons equal funding is so important. From my own background, it was access to education that made it possible for me to develop my potential. I’m still a great believer in the transforming powers of education.

Vermont Woman

What do you point to as your most satisfying accomplishment there?

Madeleine Kunin

I worked on standards for education, vocational education, educational technology and educating girls in math and science. So it was a wide variety of things. I tried to take models of schools that worked, of programs that worked, and get them duplicated. I gave teachers encouragement, teachers who work under very tough circumstances. Some just don’t get recognition, so if I could uplift an audience, that was an accomplishment.

Vermont Woman

At one point, you said the secret of political success was building alliances with the sources of power while holding onto your personal convictions. You often spoke about the division you had to create within yourself to live a public life, and just now you said you always wanted to reserve a private part of yourself. So, for a young woman in politics today, wanting to take your advice, how would you invite her to think about this?

Madeleine Kunin

Really my advice is quite simple. Get involved. Don’t be a bystander to the events of your time. Getting involved is easier than people think. I take some of my inspiration, or motivation, from the experience of the Holocaust. Even though my immediate family was not affected by the Holocaust, my aunts and uncles were, and I feel that when you see injustice, if you can possibly do it, you should speak up. We still have that opportunity in the United States. When I was in Switzerland, which is a democracy, I realized that in other ways there was not that same opportunity for the individual citizen to make a difference, or for newcomers to make a difference.

Vermont Woman

Why is that?

Madeleine Kunin

There are a lot of immigrants in Switzerland, but none of them are elected to the Parliament. That opportunity to bridge class and ethnic barriers isn’t there. The outsider is the outsider. The American Dream isn’t perfect, but it’s still powerful, more powerful than any other country. So I’m still an optimist about that, and I encourage people to take action. On whatever level they feel comfortable. I’m not saying everybody should run for office, but at least be informed and engaged. I think women in particular still haven’t tested their full potential.

Vermont Woman

Was this part of the reason you began the Institute for Sustainable Communities?

Madeleine Kunin

I had gone to Bulgaria as an election observer, and I saw the poignancy of their optimism about democracy and I thought, they’re going to need help to make this come true. So that’s one of the reasons we founded the Institute. But I also wanted to test what you can do outside of government. I guess I still wanted to figure out a way to have an impact. That’s part of why I wrote the book, Living a Political Life. I wanted people to have a realistic picture of what it’s like and that it can be done.

I feel really privileged—you know, it sounds clichéd, but I do—that I had these opportunities. We hear all the bad side of politics. There’s too much money, too much conflict, there’s corruption, and all of those things are true. But it’s still absolutely fascinating, in terms of the intellectual challenges you face, the problem-solving you do, the broad spectrum of people you meet. It’s a rich way to live, like having a peanut butter sandwich every night, or going to a banquet. You can live in a very narrow sphere, or you can broaden your experiences broadly. Politics is fun. That’s not talked about very much.

Vermont Woman

Your memoir included a much more intimate look at the emotional experience of being in politics. Was that deliberate on your part?

Madeleine Kunin

Yes. I heard Jill Kerr Conway and Carolyn Heilbrun speak, and after that I read Heilbrun’s Writing a Woman’s Life. I used her definition of power in the opening of my book. [It says, “Power is the ability to take one’s place in whatever discourse is essential to action and the right to have one’s part matter. This is true in the Pentagon, in marriage, in friendship, and in politics.”] There aren’t many books by women that realistically describe their road to success. Women tend to gloss over the struggle and attribute a lot of things to luck. Almost like a romance: you fell in love, you fell into this leadership role.

In truth, most women who end up in leadership, whether in the private sector or the public sector, had ambition, had a vision, and had to work for it. They had conflicts. I wanted to write about that realistically. You need a road map. Men have written a lot of books about that, and I think women are beginning to write that way now, but there still is a tendency. If you listen to successful women today, they’ll still do it. I wanted to write as honest a book as I could.

Vermont Woman

What do you hope for the Women’s History Project that you’re a part of? Is it at all unsettling to look back on your life and see history?

Madeleine Kunin

[Laughter] It is sobering. But women have to tell their stories. We need to learn their stories. That’s why women’s history is so important. We learn through stories. We model ourselves after the stories we hear, we all do that, women and men. We have to know women’s stories, we have to understand them. And women have to be willing to tell them.  

Rickey Gard Diamond is Contributing Editor to Vermont Woman, and was founding editor of Vermont Woman the first in 1985. She lives and writes in Montpelier.