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When women began running for office and winning in growing numbers in the 1960s and 1970s, many of the men in the Maryland legislature ignored them or, at worst, were openly hostile.

When a female delegate pointed out the lack of representation by women on key committees, then-House speaker Thomas Hunter Lowe appointed her “chairman of the Ladies' Rest Room Committee.”

Denied plum committee assignments, relegated to waiting in line to use a public restroom while the men had a restroom reserved for legislators and often facing a barrage of sexist remarks, the women in the State House banded together to form the Women’s Caucus in 1972.

The group, formally known as the Women Legislators of Maryland, marked its 40th anniversary at the beginning of this year’s legislative session.

In 1972, 13 women were in the legislature; today, there are 58. All women state lawmakers are members of the group, but not all participate.

“We’ve come a long way, but there is still work to be done,” said Del. Susan Lee, the current chairwoman of the Women’s Caucus, who joined the legislature in 2002.

When Ida Ruben became a delegate in 1975, the State House “was a little rough when it came to women,” said Ruben of Silver Spring, who left office as a state senator in 2007. “But we worked hard to make ourselves known, and eventually it worked.”

For years, the Women’s Caucus focused more on committee assignments than legislation. But after legislation sought by the group was blocked by one male lawmaker, the women gathered in a hall and decided en masse — Democrats and Republicans — to vote against a bill he wanted passed. His bill died.

Although Ruben could not remember the recalcitrant legislator or the issue that prompted the women to take the stand, she recalls the feeling of unity among them.

“The way women stood together and voted against his bill, it sent the message,” Ruben said. “And that was, we had the muscle with our votes just like everybody else.”

In its earliest days, the Women’s Caucus was more of a social gathering, said Catherine Riley, who served 16 years in Annapolis — first as a delegate for eight years then as a senator. (She currently is an adjunct professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, College Park.)

The group formed in the wake of the Black Legislative Caucus in 1970, as more minorities and women fought for and achieved political gains.

“In 1975, in the middle of the session, we had a breakfast meeting at the Maryland Inn, and we got into a conversation about our future,” Riley recalled.

“And it was decided then that there were so many more opportunities to be more involved in the issues and to be more of a political force instead of arguing for minimum steps forward like committee assignments.

“We had to. The legislature was very much an old boys’ network.”

The caucus mostly was made up of Democrats, in the predominantly Democratic state, but there was usually at least one Republican, she said.

“So we made an agreement we would take on issues we could address in a bipartisan fashion,” Riley said.

The caucus tackled issues such as equal pay for women and equal opportunities for pension benefits.

“Women who were divorced had no rights to any of the pensions, and we changed that,” Riley said.

In 1976, then-Senate president Steny H. Hoyer presented a package of bills to alter rape and sexual assault laws that the women sought.

“He took us seriously,” Riley said. “Steny was one of the first men to recognize the importance of the caucus on social issues and social justice issues. The men had to begin taking us seriously.”

Hoyer, now a U.S. representative (D-Dist. 5) of Mechanicsville, said of the Women’s Caucus, “As a member of the Maryland state Senate, I was proud to stand with its founders as they established this caucus.” Hoyer said the caucus pressed forward for the cause of women in the tradition of Margaret Brent.

Brent was a Maryland native who in 1648 appeared before the Maryland Assembly and unsuccessfully demanded the right to vote.

The 1970s were a time of political change for women throughout the nation, said University of Maryland professor Kristjana L. Maddux, who is an expert on feminism and political communication.

“1972 was an interesting year because things were very exciting for women,” she said. “That was an era when things felt very possible for women.”

But women continue to face sexism in how they are treated, Maddux said.

“There’s been dramatic change, but it hasn’t been exactly linear progress,” she said.

In the workplace, as an example, women earned 77.4 percent of what men earned in 2010. From 2009 to 2010 in the U.S., the median income of men with full-time jobs was $47,715; for women, it was $36,931, according to census data. Still, 50 years ago women earned 61 percent of what men earned.

One of the reasons a Women’s Caucus remains important is to help educate fellow legislators — not just men, Maddux said.

“We can’t get fooled into thinking that women are all smart and progressive,” she said.

Even though today is a more enlightened time than 40 years ago, a lot of work remains for the caucus to do, Lee said.

Last session, it helped pass an “aggressive agenda of bills” to help empower women and families economically; better protect victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking; and restore $350,000 in funding to rape crisis centers statewide, among other issues, Lee said.

“We still have issues and challenges,” she said. “In the past, it was so hard to get any domestic violence bill through.

“But the women’s caucus has been instrumental in educating our colleagues and changing the culture here.”

cford@gazette.net