Books in Brief: Storming the Statehouse

Storming the Statehouse: Running for Governor with Ann Richards and Dianne Feinstein, by Celia Morris (Scribner’s, 325 pp., $25)

THIS is as much an abortion and feminism advocacy book asitisan account of the 1990 gubernatorial campaigns of Ann Richards and Dianne Feinstein. Author Celia Morris argues that since the “right” to abortion is under attack, and since this right involves only women, women should therefore be elected to defend it—and themselves. Miss Morris paints these two politicians as courageous leaders in a world in which women are supposed to stay at home and care for the kids. She praises Mrs. Feinstein for leaving her first husband because she did not want to remain a housewife, and both ladies because neither “really believes that our current set of problems can be solved without raising taxes”—anyone who does “is likely also to believe in the tooth fairy.” (Mrs. Feinstein, however, is not as courageous as her Texas colleague, in Miss Morris’s opinion, since her views were similar to those of her opponent, Pete Wilson. We’re also to think less of Mrs. Feinstein because she’s not comfortable in blue jeans.) Miss Morris doesn’t include other female candidates such as pro-life (“anti-choice”) Kansas Governor Joan Finney, who ran and won in the same year as her colleagues from Texas and California—but if she had, we can be sure they would not have been as courageous. —Geoffrey Morris

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Geoffrey Morris

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Storming the Statehouse: Running for Governor with Ann Richards and Dianne Feinstein, by Celia Morris (Scribner’s, 325 pp., $25)

THIS is as much an abortion and feminism advocacy book asitisan account of the 1990 gubernatorial campaigns of Ann Richards and Dianne Feinstein. Author Celia Morris argues that since the “right” to abortion is under attack, and since this right involves only women, women should therefore be elected to defend it—and themselves. Miss Morris paints these two politicians as courageous leaders in a world in which women are supposed to stay at home and care for the kids. She praises Mrs. Feinstein for leaving her first husband because she did not want to remain a housewife, and both ladies because neither “really believes that our current set of problems can be solved without raising taxes”—anyone who does “is likely also to believe in the tooth fairy.” (Mrs. Feinstein, however, is not as courageous as her Texas colleague, in Miss Morris’s opinion, since her views were similar to those of her opponent, Pete Wilson. We’re also to think less of Mrs. Feinstein because she’s not comfortable in blue jeans.) Miss Morris doesn’t include other female candidates such as pro-life (“anti-choice”) Kansas Governor Joan Finney, who ran and won in the same year as her colleagues from Texas and California—but if she had, we can be sure they would not have been as courageous. —Geoffrey Morris