Insights 60 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine from left: filipp v. kotsishevskiy; courtesy photos across the country, will be a unifying assem- bly to address neglected issues from equality, to education, to reproductive rights. Though it sounds like the start of a kick-ass new Net- flix series, this legendary trip will be an ignit- ing spark. It lights up an organization called the Maine Women’s Lobby over 2,000 miles away. As you read this, the Lobby is celebrat- ing its 40th year in search of justice. Up in the Air W ith ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” play- ing in her head, State Representa- tive Lois Reckitt, who will later be- come Vice President Executive of the Na- tional Organization for Women, looked out her Boeing 727 window to see the clouds and cities below as she rushed south. “It was very energizing and exciting,” she says. “Every time the plane stopped” at connect- ing cities on the way to Houston, “more del- egates got on,” from other states. “The plane felt full of us.” She ruefully remembers the flight attendants–“who I fear may still have been referred to as stewardesses at the time”–were supportive of the mission. It wasn’t all smooth sailing. Once in Houston, the group arrived at the hotel to find a conference for overwhelmingly male building contractors refusing to leave. “It was really a mess trying to get into the ho- tel. I remember Bella Abzug (chair of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year and head of the conference) came tearing into the lobby, practically mowing me down.” These wom- en meant business. The Task at Hand Specifically, issues on the table for the 19 Mainers covered the Equal Rights Amend- ment, shelters for domestic violence sur- vivors, sexual assault crisis services, equal pay, and pregnancy discrimination. Reck- itt says there was one major contention: whether or not to openly support lesbian Lobby Executive Director, Eliza Townsend (above right). “But, when the session con- cluded, there was no money appropriated for the shelters. The group was told that in the middle of the night when the decisions were reached, there wasn’t anyone present repre- senting them.” After the defeat of the Bat- tered Women’s Projects (BWP) in 1978, the women “learned, regrouped, and vowed never again” would they be unrepresented during a legislative vote. At the time, it wasn’t just the halls of Au- gusta lacking female representation. At the Maine Women’s Lobby Celebration in 2014, Mills described the dichotomy of the time: movements like women’s rights continued to gain intensity, but women continued to be underrepresented in the workplace. In 1978, 92 students graduated the Universi- ty of Maine School of Law–only 21 of them women (Last year, women made up just un- der half of the class.) “There were even few- er role models for women who wished to work construction, in the trades, or in law enforcement,” says Mills. A Different World A nyone who considers this nostal- gia isn’t keeping her eyes open. Yes, this was a different time, though re- cent headlines do have us wondering just how far we’ve come. Three years after this flight, the Portland Interna- tional Jetport still maintained pay toilets in the women’s re- stroom, but not the men’s. The reasoning? Women’s toi- lets required more cleaning. Other states across the coun- try had already banned the practice in the mid-1970s, fol- lowing efforts by women’s groups and the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America. In a 1992 Portland Press Her- ald article, former Portland rights. “There was some concern it would hinder our organizing attempts,” she says. “At the conference, there was an effort by some to identify everybody who wasn’t ‘out.’ There was a code that if you wore a yellow smile button, you were either les- bian or supportive of the issues.” Reckitt, who had just recently come out, remem- bers stepping into an elevator and being handed a button. “It felt like a safe place. The ‘antis’ were all the way across town at some rally after not being able to get enough delegates to make any difference at all,” she says with a laugh. The turning point on the gay rights issue was when Bet- ty Friedan, co-founder and president of the National Organization of Women, who was known to take an anti-LGBT stance, stood up and spoke in support. Return Flight The world had changed during the confer- ence. Now it was time to bring change back to Maine. The delegates landed back home with a “gentle, optimistic energy fueled by uni- ty of purpose,” says Maine Attorney Gen- eral Mills. After the trip to Houston, the Attorney General’s Office partnered with the ACLU to hold the first Maine Wom- en’s Conference at Colby College. “Our original meetings were small gatherings in someone’s apartment or someone’s office, conniving in rooms to raise money, to spread the word, and to de- velop some presence, status, and respect in the halls of the State House.” During the 1978 Maine Legislative Session, the group worked to fund battered wom- en’s shelters. “They had tes- tified, written letters, found sponsors, agreed on a budget– all of it,” says Maine Women’s “In a state that ranked ninth-highest nationally in homicides against women by men in a 2013 Violence Policy Center study, change in Maine hasn’t been easy.” Bright Ambition:Attorney General Janet Mills is running for governor in 2018.Maine has yet to elect a female governor.