Geraldine Ferraro

Geraldine Ferraro

By Tom Kirvan

In the male-dominated world of politics, Geraldine Ferraro was a trail-blazing figure, a woman whose 1984 campaign for the second highest office in the land broke the proverbial vice-presidential glass ceiling in America.

A second-generation Italian-American, Ferraro was a three-term congresswoman from Queens, N.Y. when she was chosen by Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale as his running mate in the 1984 election against the GOP ticket of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Her selection was a surprise, even if Ferraro had made a statement several months earlier that might have foreshadowed Mondale’s choice.

“There’s no way any presidential candidate is going to choose a woman as a running mate unless he’s 15 points behind in the polls,” had said Ferraro at a closed-door meeting of the National Women’s Caucus.

That was pretty much the case when Ferraro was notified by Mondale that she was his choice to join the Democratic ticket, hoping that the bold move would translate into a win on Election Day. It did not, of course, as Reagan waltzed into a second term in office, with all but one state going for Republican incumbent.

Geraldine Ferraro*

A teacher and then attorney, Ferraro began her legal career in the Queens District Attorney’s Office, where she helped start the Special Victims Bureau. She then entered politics, winning a two-year seat in Congress in 1978, where she was a force for gender equality, sponsoring the Women’s Economic Equity Act which ended pension discrimination against women, and seeking greater job training and opportunities for displaced homemakers.

“Women make up more than half of society,” said Ferraro, who was born August 26, 1935. “We are the majority, and it’s time that we start acting like it.”

To drive home her point further, she added: “In politics, if you want something said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.”

Married and the mother of three children, Ferraro served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council from 1993-96 under the Clinton administration. She later became a noted political commentator on television, before succumbing to a lengthy battle with multiple myeloma in 2011 at age 75.

*Rebecca Roth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons