ANNAPOLIS -- Every woman in the State House, it seems, has a memory of a special man.
Former lobbyist Rachel Wadsworth Dale remembers "one of our beloved senators" publicly praising her bosses for hiring "a prettier class of lobbyist these days."
Sen. Barbara A. Hoffman and Sen. Paula C. Hollinger will never forget some of their male colleagues calling them the worst anatomical, anti-woman epithet during the 1990 abortion filibuster. "It was so ugly," Ms. Hoffman says now. "Even to think about it gives me indigestion."
And lobbyist Carolyn T. Burridge has chalked up a list of legislators who have propositioned her.
"You just say no and go on," Ms. Burridge says.
But in the process of going on, women here are often reminded of how far they still have to go.
Last week, for example, Del. Kenneth H. Masters denounced a civil rights bill that would have put prohibitions on sexual harassment into state law.
"I ask anyone in the House to define that term [sexual harassment]," said Mr. Masters, a Baltimore County Democrat. "This is insane public policy."
The bill narrowly passed, but only after two tries on the House floor. These are the same men, Sen. Mary H. Boergers said, who identified with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas when he was accused in his confirmation hearings of sexual harassment.
"Whatever their profession, they haven't really worked with women much," said Ms. Boergers, a Montgomery County Democrat and an 11-year General Assembly veteran. "What they're comfortable with is the boy-girl stuff. Women as mothers, sisters, girlfriends."
In many respects, the State House remains a man's world. Women -- legislators and lobbyists alike -- are a growing, but still small minority.
On a good day in Annapolis, a woman is a lady, showered with courtly praise. On a bad day -- when a woman crosses a powerful man or dares to observe that gender appears to be a factor in some decision -- she's an "[expletive] woman's libber." Or worse.
They learn to ignore sexist jokes and boorish remarks. They know which male legislators not to be alone with -- whether it's the lawmaker who grabs everyone in the elevator or one who propositions lobbyists.
"We're kidding ourselves to think there are not a lot of people who are not comfortable with us being here," said Del. Anne S. Perkins, D-Baltimore, the only woman chairing a major legislative committee.
Slender gains, slow progress
Despite some gains in recent elections, women account for less than a quarter of the 188 members of the General Assembly: 35 of 141 delegates and nine of 47 senators. Maryland ranks 14th in the country in electing women legislators.
And in the leadership ranks, where most power still rests, women have made slower progress.
Of the 20 committee chairmen and their deputies in the General Assembly, only three are women. Del. Nancy K. Kopp, a Montgomery County Democrat, serves as the House speaker pro tem, a largely ceremonial position but one with access to important discussions and decisions. Another woman, Susanne Brogan, is House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr.'s chief aide, the first woman in that well-placed position.
During a recent tribute to the state's first black female senator, the late Verda F. Welcome, Sen. Clarence W. Blount summarized the choices women face, acknowledging that some problems linger.
"She used sweetness," the Baltimore Democrat said of Mrs. Welcome. "She understood men and the male ego. She plied them with everything she had. She used all her femininity to get the job done.
"It wasn't easy for women then.
"It's not necessarily easy for women now."
Nothing came easily
Two decades ago, the Maryland law books were still filled with archaic strictures on women, said Catherine I. Riley, a former Senate committee chairman who left the legislature in 1990 and is now a lobbyist.
Female lawmakers frequently led the fight for change, pushing for new laws on rape, divorce, child support, domestic violence, and funding for the Woman, Infants and Children nutritional aid program and others.
Nothing came easily. It took several years, for example, to pass a bill overturning an entrenched piece of common law: a man's right to rape his wife.
Del. Pauline H. Menes, a Prince George's Democrat who first came to the House in 1967, said her male colleagues suffered from the shortsightedness at the root of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill imbroglio. They just didn't get it.
"There was a lack of experience, a lack of information," she said of her early fights to have domestic violence recognized as a problem. "They said: 'It is not needed.' 'There is no such problem.' "
Then there's potty parity. Women lawmakers have tried for years to pass a law requiring public facilities to provide equitable restroom facilities for women. Their efforts have yielded silly newspaper stories and bad bathroom jokes, but no law.
But this year both chambers have passed bills on the issue. And Ms. Hoffman, the Senate sponsor, pointed out that her bill passed unanimously, with Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and Mr. Blount, the majority leader, listed as co-sponsors.
"It was a joke; everyone thought it was funny," she said, referring to early efforts to pass a law. "But truthfully, in their private lives, all the men in this legislature knew it was an issue."
Only a few years ago, it was an issue in the State House itself, where there was no nearby bathroom for female legislators. When Ms. Menes complained during her first term, then-Speaker Thomas Hunter Lowe presented her with a fur-lined toilet seat in front of the entire House of Delegates.
The joke backfired on Mr. Lowe. But it took another 15 years to get the restroom.
Lobbying has never been a profession for the pure at heart. But some of its female practitioners make compromises that men never face.
Male lobbyists, many say, have a built-in advantage currying favor with the male power structure. Some women, for example, find it awkward to entertain a man alone at night, particularly beyond the Annapolis session.
Then there were the two female lobbyists who took a male lawmaker to dinner to discuss a bill that was high on women legislators' agendas. The evening turned sour when the lawmaker extended inappropriate compliments to one of the women and fired off a vulgar anti-female tirade.
The women involved won't talk about the evening, for fear of alienating the lawmaker.
Flirting as a tool
Other women lobbyists use flirting as a tool -- up to a point.
"One legislator said to me, 'Don't talk to me unless you wear that leather skirt,' " said a female lobbyist who asked to remain anonymous. "He's a friend. I wasn't offended -- but I'm wearing my leather skirt."
This lobbyist has adapted to the kisses and nonchalant back rubbing that some male legislators extend to women in the State House.
"I don't like it," she said of a recent encounter. "But I thought it really didn't bother me, and maybe, next time, I'll get to talk to him in his office.
"What you're trying to do is build up people's trust, trying to get them to like you. If you have them end up not liking you, you will not get very far."
In her days lobbying for the public interest group Common Cause of Maryland, Ms. Dale found she could get time alone with one busy senator only on the dance floor at Fran O'Brien's restaurant.
"It was the only opportunity I had to talk to him. Was that sexist on his part? Was it sexist on my part? I don't know," she said.
Ms. Dale, like many other lobbyists, was propositioned from time to time by legislators from whom she was trying to win votes. Although there was never an explicit quid pro quo, the trade was implicit in the proposition, she said.
"It's very easy to feel vulnerable," Ms. Dale said. "That's why that kind of approach constitutes harassment even if it's not a quid pro quo."
Male legislators can be as boorish as they like, said one female lobbyist.
"They have us; they know they have us," she said. "It's certainly unfair, but that's the way it is."
Ms. Burridge, to her dismay, became the best-known female lobbyist in Annapolis four years ago. Newspaper articles contended that Ms. Burridge was trading on her romantic relationship with state licensing Secretary William A. Fogle Jr. to gain clients and influence.
Ms. Burridge believes the press singled her out because she was a woman. After all, male lobbyists are rarely criticized for exploiting their relationships with powerful male officials, she said.
"Is there sexism? Absolutely," Ms. Burridge said. "The sexism is something you recognize and live with. Has it impeded me in my profession? In part, yes. But not enough to discourage me."
Lobbyists have no recourse against offensive lawmakers. These men are not their bosses. But female staffers, who do have some protection under the law, are not immune.
Things have been generally fine, said one longtime staffer, "except for the time a senator tried to bite my boob." The attempt came in the office as the woman leaned over her desk to gather some papers.
By general agreement, more women will gain power as they gain experience. New legislators of both sexes face the same problem: it takes time to earn respect.
Some women have been victims of their own political success. In recent years, they've been more likely than men to move from the House to the Senate. Just as they're ready for House leadership roles, they find themselves at the bottom of the seniority ladder in the upper chamber.
"These girls over here [in the Senate] are pretty seasoned as legislators and politically," said Sen. Michael J. Wagner, an Anne Arundel County Democrat. "They know they've got to play within the system."
And it's difficult for some women to adjust to a combative atmosphere.
"I think we're much more comfortable working for consensus rather than a head-on collision," Ms. Perkins said.
But in her six years as chairman of the Constitutional and Administrative Law Committee, she has learned how to show some fangs.
"You have to do it once in a while" to maintain some respect, she said.
"I think there are some men who aren't as comfortable working with women," concluded Ms. Hollinger, who in 1986 became the first woman elected to the Senate from Baltimore County. "But, we're fighters. We wouldn't be down here if we weren't."