Muleskinner

Issue date: 10/5/06 Section: News

Girl Power-Harriet Woods, left, poses with Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader-Ginsberg.

As a part of the new course, Women in the Democratic Process, a Missouri politician shared her life experiences with the UCM campus.

Harriet Woods, who ran for Senate in 1982, and later became Missouri's lieutenant governor spoke on campus Sept. 28 and described how she got into the political scene.

"In college, I never thought I would run for office;­ it never crossed my mind," Woods said.

Instead, Woods wanted to be an investigative journalist, but during that time, her ambitions proved more difficult than she thought.

"When I got out of college, women couldn't really get newspaper jobs," Woods said. "The job listings in the newspapers back then were separated into two categories-male and female, and the female jobs were secretary, clerk, nursing and sometimes social work."

Woods grew up and attended college in Michigan, where she became the managing editor of the Michigan Daily.

"I thought I was on top of the world; I was managing men," Woods said. "But when I went out into the real world, those men got jobs, and I didn't."

Woods said she went to every city with a major newspaper to look for a job after college. She finally came to St. Louis, where she applied for a job at the Post-Dispatch. They didn't even look at her application, saying they will never have a woman in the city room of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Woods said.

"Well, today their managing editor is a woman," Woods said.
Woods eventually found a job at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and later became involved in television as a producer. Woods then married a "fellow newspaper person" in the '50s and raised three children.

"I had three kids in a quick order, so I could go back to work as soon as possible," Woods said.

Woods actually became involved in politics because of her children. She said as a young mother she would put her children down to sleep, and as soon she would, large trucks would drive down the street she lived on and run over a noisy manhole cover and wake her kids up.

Woods decided to go to city hall and ask them to do something about it.

"They told me it wasn't their problem," Woods said. "But that was my moment of opportunity. I took out my legal pad and pen and went door to door, and sure enough, the other mothers in the neighborhood were upset about the same thing."

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools