This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 29, 2011 - It might be hard for anyone born after 1984 to grasp why Geraldine Ferraro's nomination for vice president was such a big deal.
Unlike President Barack Obama's historic campaign, Ferraro's candidacy fizzled. Yet it marked a no-turning-back point in attitudes toward and among women. After years of slowly expanding opportunities, Ferraro's nomination was the galvanizing moment that captured a profound change.
"It's Ferraro!" the kids shouted, waking my husband and me. They got the scoop from the morning paper outside our hotel room in San Francisco, where we'd gone to cover the Democratic convention for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I'd reported on Ferraro's earlier appearance amid speculation that Walter Mondale might pick her as his running mate. Hearing the news from the next generation seemed appropriate.
Many Americans, regardless of party, were thrilled to see the first woman nominated for a presidential ticket by a major party. San Francisco was abuzz with giddy conversation, especially among women. But skepticism was rumbling as well - questions about Ferraro's credentials and about whether women in general were suited to the demands of such a job.
Ferraro's challenge was an outsized version of what many women faced at the time: to prove competence for jobs that had previously been off limits. Ferraro's story resonated with many on another level as well -- she was someone who had juggled work and family responsibilities without giving up on either.
Mondale and Ferraro were heading to Lake Tahoe to confer about how to capitalize on their breakthrough moment. Soon, so were we - my husband and I with our four children, ages 1 to 9, squeezed into a rental car. For us, how to achieve the proper balance of work and family seemed less like a political matter, more like a matter of survival.
Bill and I were sharing a job in the Post-Dispatch's Washington bureau, where my beats included women in politics - a relatively new trend. And we were sharing the job at home raising the kids. The arrangement sounds idyllic and we were grateful for it, but there was stress, too, in charting this new course.
At work, I learned that women candidates faced certain double binds. For example, if they had young children, people wondered whether the women were neglecting them to pursue their careers. But if women had no children, people wondered why not. If women sounded nice, people wondered if they were tough enough for demanding jobs. But if women sounded tough, people found them too harsh.
To me, these kinds of conflicting expectations sounded familiar.
The night Ferraro gave her acceptance speech, many male delegates let wives and daughters take their places. Ferraro said: "If we can do this, we can do anything." Cheering, weeping women filled the convention floor. Reporting from the scene, I was so moved that I feared my feelings would result in a biased story. Instead, after overcompensating, my first draft was so dry that an editor begged me to reflect the emotion that was sweeping the crowd.
I did, and I can still remember how momentous that night felt. Yet clearly, it was not momentous enough. Last election cycle, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, among others, complained that women are still held to a different standard than men. My sons and daughters are grown, but their generation faces a struggle to balance work and family responsibilities that is no less difficult than my own.
And yet, it is a different struggle - one that starts with expectations for equality and opportunity, expectations that Ferraro altered forever in 1984.