Henrietta Hay's Column

Women of my generation were brought up to believe that our only roles in life were to be wives and mothers. Period. We were not expected to go beyond that role nor in most cases were we allowed to do so. Higher education was a frill.

Some of us, fortunately, did not get the message.

Two of those women have achieved great success in a man's world. Katharine Graham, just finishing her illustrious career and Madeleine Albright just starting one of the most important jobs in the United States, came to power by different routes, but they shared of the same sexist roadblocks.

Graham, took over as publisher of the Washington Post in 1963, following the suicide of her husband. Her memoir, Personal History. has just been published and is a wonderful story of a woman's journey to power. She was born to wealth and position and inherited her job, but that in no way takes away from what she accomplished with it.

She watched the growth of the women's movement, from afar and at first "was put off by the pioneering feminists who necessarily, I now suspect, took extreme positions to make their crucial point about the essential equality of women." Later she became friends with several of them, including Gloria Steinem who helped her understand what was happening and to throw off some of the myths associated with her old style thinking.

Gradually she came to see the issues relating to women. She says, "Though it took me a long time, I did come to understand the importance of the basic problems of equality in the workplace, upward mobility, salary equity and, more recently, child care. Most important to me was that women had a right to choose which life-style suited them...Eventually I came to realize that if women understood this and acted on it, things would be better for men as well as women."

Probably the defining moment of her career came in 1971. She was faced with the decision of whether or not the Washington Post should publish the Pentagon Papers. The New York Times had been stopped by a Court order, and she was faced with the issue of freedom of the press. With the government on one side and her editors on the other, she writes, "Frightened and tense, I took a big gulp and said 'Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Let's go. Let's publish.'" Later she stood firmly behind her editors and reporters during the Watergate scandal.

Madeleine Albright's background could not have been more different. She was born a Czech, brought up in four countries, speaks five languages, has a Ph. D. from Columbia and has built an outstanding career in government service and academia.

She obviously did not take seriously the belief that women were inferior intellectually or any other way. According to Time, "Her father was the first of the intellectual mentors who sharpened her skills and toughened her hide. The other dominant figures, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Edmund Muskie were known for their fierce intellectual appetites and the grilling they put their students and colleagues through"

Her appointment as Secretary of State is an incredible achievement for a woman. She is the first one to reach that rank. According to Richard Moe, who worked with her in the Carter administration, "There is no harder glass ceiling. Madeleine broke through it by working twice as hard as a lot of her male counterparts."

She has not lost her personal touch or her disregard for the traditional "professional woman" stereotype. "When I work I really work. I rub my eyes and my makeup comes off, and I stick pencils in my hair. So I've given up." As part of her equipment for the job she says, "I can sleep on anything -- including elevators."

These are women who have succeeded in a man's world. They have done it without abdicating their female roles. Between them they have borne and raised seven highly successful children and are doting grandmothers.

In their rise to power, both of them have faced prejudice and resentment based strictly on their sex. But they got there on their own brains and ability and hard work. They are superb role models for our young women.