MUCH has been written about the "feminization" of American politics.

Masses of working women are supposedly flexing their political muscles and demanding a more caring government.

The feminization of politics has brought us George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism," the Family and Medical Leave Act and the candidacy of Elizabeth Hanford Dole, Republican for president.

In truth, politics are not becoming feminized as much as matronized. American women are older than they used to be.

Women of the massive Baby Boom generation are no longer swashbuckling singles in their 20s and 30s, obsessed with their careers.

They are, to use the old-fashioned term, matrons in their 40s and 50s. Their biggest fear is loss of social status.

The signs of danger are everywhere. If they are married, they may be replaced by younger wives.

Swinging bars and restaurants treat them like unclaimed baggage.

Their local television station dumps the blonde who read news for two decades and allows her male co-anchor to age into a silver fox.

Mood assessment

Political consultants are notoriously limited in assessing the female mood.

When the Monica thing broke, Republican analysts assumed that American women would grab their rolling pins and beat the philandering president's career to a pulp.

They were incapable of understanding how mature women might interpret the sex scandal.

Women did not regard Monica Lewinsky as any kind of replacement for Hillary Clinton.

Thus, she was little threat to anyone. Monica was just a good-time girl, misbehaving as many of them had done in their 20s.

Indeed, Elizabeth Dole is a far more complicated figure for wom- en than Monica could ever hope to be.

Mrs. Dole is clearly bright, hard-working, educated. She comes with an impressive resume.

What also sticks out, though, is Elizabeth's role as the quintessential second American wife.

Bob's first wife, Phyllis, had nursed his war wounds, sewn costumes for his campaign workers back in Kansas, borne him a daughter, kept dinner warm when he came home late.

Phyllis purged

Phyllis has since been purged from the Dole official biography, as have hundreds of other political wives before and since.

Their ex-husbands now strut the campaign trail as devoted family men. Cameras rolling, they publicly dote on women who are second, third, or, in some cases, fourth wives.

They think that no one notices that they have a 21-year-old son and a 33-year-old wife. The matrons certainly do. The divorce of the first wife doesn't bother them nearly as much as her disappearance.

There's a scene in Tom Wolfe's novel, "A Man in Full," in which the 50-something ex-wife of an Atlanta real-estate magnate is fuming over a photo layout in a local magazine.

The husband would have gotten nowhere without her influence and work. Now he is posing with her 28-year-old replacement and a baby stroller.

The caption reads: "When Charlie and Serena Croker and their 11-month-old daughter, Kingsley, head off on a family outing ..."

The ex-wife explains to a female friend: "Charlie Croker already has a family. He's got two grown daughters and a 16-year-old son."

She goes on to ask, "Whatever happened to the first Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller? Whatever happened to the first Mrs. Aristotle Onassis?

"Whatever happened to the first Mrs. Ronald Reagan -- and she was a movie star!

"They're all invisible. They're superfluous."

Invisible tribute

Imagine Phyllis Dole turning on the Republican National Convention in 1996 and hearing the man to whom she devoted decades of her life triumphantly tell the throngs:

"But this is not my moment, it is yours. It is yours, Elizabeth. It is yours, Robin (the daughter he had with Phyllis). It is yours, Jack and Joanne Kemp (his vice-presidential running mate and wife)."

The moment is for everyone but Phyllis.

Knowing this history, how many sentimental tears can American women shed when confronted with Bob and Elizabeth's loving joint autobiography, titled "Unlimited Partners"?

And so political consultants devising ways to use the feminization of politics to their candidates' advantage must tread carefully.

Women, and especially older women, do indeed look into candidate biographies for clues on their attitudes toward women.

But they also notice when someone is missing, and that someone could have been one of their high school classmates.

Froma Harrop is a Providence Journal editorial writer and columnist.

Pub Date: 3/22/99