JOIN USWill Cuomo’s scandals pave the way for New York City’s first female mayor?
In the race to become mayor of New York, there is a glass ceiling, unbroken but not unmentioned by the several women running for the position this year: The city has had 109 mayors, not one of them a woman.
So at gatherings like a recent fundraiser for Kathryn Garcia, a Democratic hopeful, that barrier has been top of mind.
The online fundraiser, which was attended by dozens of women, many of them veterans of city government, was held last week on International Women’s Day. But Garcia’s mission was particularly relevant for another reason, too: Earlier that day, two high-powered lawyers were named to lead an independent investigation of sexual harassment accusations made against Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
It was a moment that Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, leaned into.
“New York’s governor is reminding us it is time to see more women in positions of power,” Garcia told the group. “In 2021, there is no right man for the job of mayor.”
The women running for mayor have all touched upon the historic nature of their political campaigns, highlighting it in fundraising pitches and on social media.
And more recently, they have underscored the need to end the male-dominated political culture that gave rise to the sexual harassment scandal surrounding Cuomo.
Many of the governor’s strongest critics have been women. Two Democrats, Garcia and Maya Wiley, were among the first mayoral hopefuls to urge Cuomo to resign. A third, Dianne Morales, has called for his impeachment.
With only three months left until the June 22 Democratic primary for mayor, the political world is abuzz over Cuomo’s scandals. Two of the race’s more prominent male candidates, Andrew Yang and Eric Adams, have taken a more cautious approach to address Cuomo’s political straits, only recently saying that he should step aside until the investigations are complete.
The governor’s problems have given the female candidates more ammunition to make their case that it is time for a woman to lead New York City.
They have rebuked Cuomo and shared their stories of sexual harassment and sexism in politics. And they have argued that they would offer a more inclusive style of leadership than Cuomo, one that empowers staffers and does not rely on bullying.
Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and the former head of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, who is the strongest female candidate in the polls and fundraising, has called on the men in the race to join her in urging Cuomo to resign.
“It is clear that this is a man who behaves this way,” Wiley said. “This isn’t a single mistake. This isn’t a misinterpretation. This is a set of behaviours, and this is who he is.”
Political experts have many theories about why New York is such a difficult environment for women running for office, from overt sexism to machine politics and the challenges of raising large amounts of money.
Ruth Messinger, a former Manhattan borough president, said she experienced all three hurdles in 1997 when she ran as the Democratic nominee against the Republican incumbent, Rudy Giuliani.
Voters said she was unattractive, unions were “bastions of male domination,” and men were reluctant to donate to her, she said in an interview. During a focus group, Messinger recalled, a man commented, “I would never date her.”
She would meet with major donors and thought it went well, and then husbands told their wives to write a check.
“The women wrote smaller checks,” Messinger said.
In the 2013 mayoral race, Christine Quinn, the former New York City Council speaker, had been a front-runner, but she lost to de Blasio in the Democratic primary after some voters said they found her unlikable — a word deeply influenced by gender bias and often a sexist trope, researchers on women and politics say. Quinn was also closely linked to the incumbent, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose popularity had fallen after three terms.
Quinn said she wished she had been more authentic and embraced her brusque reputation.
“That’s probably exactly what you want in the mayor of New York — a bitch with a big heart, and I’m both,” she said.
Major cities like Chicago and Houston saw voters elect their first female mayors in the 1970s and ’80s. Women now run 27 of the nation’s 100 largest cities, including Lori Lightfoot in Chicago and Keisha Lance Bottoms in Atlanta.
New York also has never had a female governor, with the state decades behind more conservative states like Texas and Alabama in electing a woman. But if Cuomo were to resign or be removed from office, a woman — Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul — would succeed him.
“The larger point here is that Cuomo’s behaviour, unfortunately, isn’t isolated — it’s a symptom of a culture that can be toxic for women, not just in Albany, but at City Hall,” said Marti Speranza Wong, executive director of Amplify Her, a group that works to elect women. “We can’t really expect an environment that is supportive of women if we don’t have women in positions of power.”
Female candidates in New York and beyond have been encouraged by the success of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose upset primary victory in 2018 over Democratic incumbent Joseph Crowley demonstrated how women can go around party officials to reach voters directly.
“Machine politics is a machine that was built by and for men,” Morales said. “In New York City, I’m not sure we’re as progressive as we like to think we are.”
Of the leading female candidates this year, two are women of colour: Wiley, who is Black, and Morales, a former nonprofit executive, who is Afro Latina.
The women in the Democratic primary are focusing on different issues: Morales is running to the left of the field and wants to cut $3 billion from the police budget; Wiley has emphasised her civil rights background and a plan to create 100,000 jobs; Garcia has highlighted her experience in government and wants to improve basic services and quality of life in the city. (Another female candidate, Loree Sutton, a retired Army brigadier general, dropped out of the Democratic race last week.)
As the candidates continue to make appearances in an endless series of online forums, the women seem to be forming a bond. At one forum where candidates were asked to pick a second choice for mayor, Wiley and Morales named each other.
Morales said she felt strongly that it was time for a woman of colour to be elected.
“There’s a level of solidarity that we all feel toward each other, and a recognition of the barriers and obstacles that we’re overcoming on a daily basis just to be in this space,” she said.
The women’s response to the allegations against the governor illustrates that common ground.
Wiley, a former MSNBC analyst with a loyal following on social media, took to Instagram last month and called Cuomo’s behaviour disgusting. She shared in a video that a boss had once asked her if she believed in monogamy.
In an interview, Wiley provided further details: She was a young lawyer alone in his office where he told her that he was open to multiple partners.
“I looked this man dead in the eye and said, ‘Yeah, I believe in monogamy,’ ” she said. “I said it with a particular attitude — let me say that — and my attitude was, ‘Really, dude? Did you just ask me that question?’ ”
“This is why when you hear Charlotte Bennett’s story, you know exactly what they’re asking you,” she said in reference to a female staffer who accused Cuomo of trying to groom her for a sexual relationship. “You’re being asked if you’re willing.”
Many of the comments on Wiley’s Instagram video were supportive. Others said she was jumping the gun and told her to “be quiet” and “shut up.”
Morales said that news reports about Cuomo’s treatment of women reminded her of a job she had while she was in her 20s.
“I’ve experienced a male boss closing the door in a small office and backing me into a corner and screaming at me at the top of his lungs and then storming out, and people surrounding me to see if I was OK,” she said.
Sara Tirschwell, a former Wall Street executive who is running in the Republican mayoral primary, once filed a sexual harassment complaint against her boss, and has also called on Cuomo to resign. She quotes Maya Angelou on her campaign website: “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it, possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”
While women have made strides in state legislatures and Congress, some voters still cannot picture a woman as president, governor or mayor, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
“When you’re the place where the buck stops, there needs to be a sense of strength and authority,” Walsh said. “That has been one of the challenges that women have faced — the stereotype that women aren’t strong or tough enough.”
That stereotype particularly rankles Garcia, who served as de Blasio’s go-to crisis manager, taking on the top job at the New York City Housing Authority and running the city’s pandemic meal program.
She said that people constantly underestimate her as she runs for mayor, and some have suggested she would make a great deputy mayor.
“It’s frustrating that you’re considered the most qualified for the job and are pigeonholed that you should be a less-qualified guy’s No. 2,” she said.