Geraldine Ferraro's enduring legacy
Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 during her run for vice president Credit: AP
Women now surging into graduate schools, lucrative professions and politics could be greeted by signs reading, "Geraldine Ferraro was here." She helped clear their path.
Ferraro, 75, died Saturday after a battle with cancer.
The Democrats and presidential nominee Walter Mondale were under pressure to pick a female running mate in 1984 and considered Rep. Patricia Schroeder of Colorado and San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein before making Ferraro the first woman on a major-party presidential ticket. Schroeder ran a brief presidential campaign four years later. Feinstein is in her fourth term as U.S. senator.
Ferraro was a lawyer, congresswoman, mother and wife. An advocate of abortion rights with a genuine manner and frank wit, she was chosen to connect with women and derail the Reagan-Bush ticket.
But with an improving economy and Reagan's popularity, Mondale and Ferraro were crushed. Questions about her family's finances didn't help. She stayed in public life, but lost primary races for the U.S. Senate in 1992 and 1998.
The progress achieved in 50 years is stunning. Of 179 students in her Fordham Law School class, Ferraro was one of two women. Today more women attend law school than men.
After Ferraro's nomination, it was 24 years before another woman appeared on the national ticket for a major party, but such a gap is unlikely to occur again. Many women are now positioned to vie for those roles, and that's largely because Ferraro, and women like her, were there first.
