EDITOR’S PAGE

What comes to mind when you think of the women’s movement? Bra-burning? A thick-haired, wire-rimmed Gloria Steinem on the “Today” show? The “zip-less” imagery in Fear of Flying? Marabel Morgan’s seductive Total Woman, a housewife-vamp swathed in Saran Wrap?

For me, the view is a room full of women, having their consciousnesses raised in “group.” Confronting their isolation by talking openly about it, these deliberately unadorned females fill the smoke-filled room with fragments of unfulfilled promise. It is not a pretty picture.

We have indeed come a long way.

Forgive the unabashed optimism, and perhaps even the arrogance of what follows here. But for many reasons, it is an exhilarating time to be a female in Dallas. We are not, by and large, victims of halcyon economics, shackled by the financial risks we took five or twenty-five years ago. We are not, by and large, hindered by discriminatory attitudes that once prevailed, especially in the work world, especially in the South. We are not, by and large, as baffled as some men seem to be by the social upheaval of the past decade.

We have, by and large, made peace with ourselves. “Wife” is no longer a four-letter word, and motherhood is downright holy once again. We have found ways to cope with isolation or avoid it entirely. We have managed to contribute in ways that conform to and often transcend the strictures of our rela- tionships with others.

This special report on the Dallas woman, which begins on page 77, is a celebration of women, by women, for women. Sally Gid-dens, an enormously bright, highly promising writer and editor who graduated from Vanderbilt University a mere five years ago, orchestrated much of the issue’s forward thrust. At the other end of the time line is a comparable treasure: Vivian Castleberry, retired after twenty-seven years as “Women’s Editor” of the Dallas Times Herald, a woman who combines charm and grit in powerful doses. Castleberry, wife of forty-one years, mother of five daughters, career woman when career women were rare, witnessed the evolution that many of us take for granted now. Indeed, the most common response I hear in Dallas to the question of Whatever Happened to the Women’s Movement? (page 78), is What Women’s Movement? We are well served by Castleberry’s memory and her gentle admonitions. Likewise, Giddens’s struggle with her moral commitment to-and her social reservations about-the junior league (“Confessions of a Closet Junior Leaguer,” page 94) is enlightening. And it may foretell the future as wrought by the women who have come of age in the Eighties.

Dallas women, of course, have not escaped the problems that afflict females everywhere: family violence and rape, sexual harassment, or other more subtle forms of degradation or abuse. And the conflicts women perceive between fulfilling family goals and personal potential are very real. But at least one barometer, a two-year study conducted by researchers and students at Texas Woman’s University (“Making It,” page 84), suggests that executive women at least are coping extremely well. The 299 women surveyed spoke candidly about the strengths and weaknesses they possess, especially relative to their male counterparts. Almost half of them did feel some form of male prejudice in their jobs. But the majority believe that they have succeeded on the basis of merit, not gender.

A number of women in the survey told of being nurtured and encouraged by a male mentor. In staff writer Lucie Nelka’s poignant portraits (“In My Father’s Footsteps,” page 87) of four fathers and daughters whose business lives follow close parallels, that mentor was also a dad. For these women and the countless others with families, our report on parenting assistance as the issue of the Nineties (“Child Care,” page 92) examines the key question: who will foot the bill for it? Will corporations and government help working families shoulder the responsibilities of caring for their children?

If we offer a celebration, we also issue a challenge, one that we hope will be fully explored in our upcoming conference, “Dallas Women: Where Do We Go From Here?” to be held November 18 at The Adolphus Hotel. We have, it is true, broken many barriers that have long blocked women in Dallas from positions of power. And the trend was evident even before Annette Strauss was elected mayor. Ten years ago, the most powerful women in Dallas wielded influence from philanthropic bases. Today, women have invaded the upper echelons of business. higher education, politics, government, law, and medicine. It’s been two years since Harriet Miers became the first woman to head the Dallas Bar Association. In 1986, a female consumer activist, Nancy Harvey Steorts, was imported from Washington to reshape the mission of that age-old bastion of male power, the Dallas Citizens Council. Kay Bailey Hutchison broke a gender barrier when she was named president, first of the elite Dallas Assembly, then of the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce. Women like assistant city manager Camille Cates Barnett (who has now moved to Houston) and city attorney Analeslie Muncy gained access to powerful posts in city government. Both of our daily newspapers have yielded the task of shaping editorial thought to women. Ruth Morgan, the first woman in the school’s history to hold this position, was named provost at SMU by new president A. Kenneth Pye in one of his first acts.

The way is well paved by these and scores of other women who follow closely behind them. But how will we use these positions of influence? How will we contribute to charting the course of Dallas’s future? By continuing in the womanly tradition of aiding the less fortunate? By helping other women, or working on so-called women’s issues? Or by striving to alter perceptions of women that hamper our abilities to bring about meaningful change?

I suspect that we will find ourselves doing all of these things and more. Perhaps women will move in as stewards of the city’s social agenda. Dallas is desperate for inspired guidance on issues that involve balancing human needs with economic ones. Public education has suffered, crime has increased, indigents go untended, racial tensions mount. The male leaders of Dallas have, on the whole, failed to provide leadership on these key concerns.

“Power is a volatile commodity,” wroteformer D editor Lee Cullum in this magazineten years ago. “It doesn’t take well to abuse,over-use, or over-estimation. Most of thetime it lies dormant, waiting for the rightmoment to assert itself.” For Dallas women,that moment has come.