Adele M. Stan is a contributing editor to Ms. magazine and a contributing writer to Mother Jones.

The year: 1996. The place: San Diego. The occasion: a luncheon sponsored by the National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW) for the female party activists in attendance at the Republican National Convention. There, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, wife of the party's presidential nominee-apparent, issued a prophecy that today she hopes to make self-fulfilling.

She led up to it by saying that she hoped the NFRW luncheon would become a convention tradition. "I'm sure that, in the very near future," she continued, "the spouse of the nominee will enjoy his time here every bit as much as I have." Her words were met with thunderous applause.

Earlier in her speech, Dole had spoken of the unfairness that often met her during her stint as President Nixon's deputy assistant for consumer affairs. She told of a meeting, to which she was sent by the White House, of business leaders from Ohio. When she arrived at the private club in which the businessmen were gathered, she was turned away at the door. "No women allowed," the doorman told her. After delivering that punch line, Dole took a beat and scanned her audience, a sea of female faces. "But, indeed," she said, "a lot of that has changed, hasn't it?"

The irony of Liddy

How will Dole handle the feminist issue?

Indeed, a lot of "that" has -- but a lot of it hasn't. Despite an uptick in their numbers, women still make up only 12% of the membership of the House of Representatives, and 9% of the Senate. What has changed significantly is the number of women lawyers and executives, and the representation of females in Cabinet posts and the upper reaches of government.

These changes are due, in no small part, to the efforts of feminists. And should Dole muster the top spot on the GOP ticket in 2000, she will owe a debt to the feminists who have spent the last two decades breaking down the barriers to women's full participation in politics. The road was paved by the women who founded the National Women's Political Caucus, the campaign funding organization for women candidates known as EMILY's List, and the White House Project, in whose straw poll Dole placed second, right behind Hillary Clinton, as the woman the project's respondents would most like to see as commander in chief.

So it is with no small measure of irony that feminists contemplate the specter of the anti-abortion, right-wing-coddling Elizabeth Dole taking her place in history as the first woman to reach the top of the ticket in one of the two major parties.

There was a time when feminists hoped to claim Dole as one of our own. I recall the excitement that ruffled through the offices of Ms. magazine (where I worked at the time) when, during her tenure as President Reagan's secretary of transportation, Dole paid a visit to the editorial staff.

Back then, Dole had yet to say a word against legalized abortion on the record, and she supported an idea called "comparable worth," whereby the compensation granted pink-collar workers such as secretaries would be brought into line with that accorded such blue-collar workers as truck drivers. She had the moxie not to raise children in a world where femininity equals motherhood. And so Elizabeth Dole held out the hope, which had greatly dwindled in the Reagan years, that feminism remained a two-party movement.

The reinvention of Dole

As time went on, though, and the right continued to gain power in the GOP, Dole put her feminism in her pocket, where she could reach for it when politically expedient -- say, while addressing a room full of ambitious women who view themselves as political leaders.

In the broader arena, though, she backed away from feminists, declaring herself to be against legal abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or a life-threatening pregnancy. During her time at the helm of the American Red Cross, Dole watered down the organization's AIDS education program in response, many said, to pressure from the right. This was despite the fact that, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, in the same period, "the number of women diagnosed as having AIDS increased by 63 percent." Her stated belief that government had a role in improving the lives of the governed changed to vague rhetoric about "personal responsibility," code words for yanking welfare benefits from poor women who are raising children alone.

Given her reinvention of herself, it is unlikely that Dole will garner much feminist support for her presidential ambitions. Still, if she sees her cause through to the presidential primary, feminists will owe Dole a debt, as well, if only for her temerity in paving the way for a feminist presidential candidate in the future. It may well be that while, according to a study by White House Project, 76% of Americans are ready to elect a woman president, they are not quite ready to elect an out-and-out feminist. If that is the case, feminists may have to rely on women who are ideologically unappealing to them to push the envelope.

Though it is hard to imagine any serious feminist casting a vote for Dole, it is incumbent upon movement leaders to monitor Dole's treatment by the media and her political rivals as she pursues her quest. Feminists have an obligation to challenge any assertions against her that appear to cast aspersions on her for her gender. It's not only the right thing to do; it's the smart thing to do.

After the Clinton scandal, feminists need to rebuild their credibility with the general public. By calling the political and media establishments on gender-based attacks on one who may not be our own, we return to our original goal of erasing gender bias and help clear the path for a future feminist candidate.

Naming names

So, in that spirit, I note two recent pieces about Dole's potential candidacy. In a front-page story in The New York Times, reporter Melinda Henneberger asserted that Dole "has been known to burst into tears over unflattering press." The candidate's legendary perfectionism duly noted, I still found the reporter's choice of words hard to digest. Had Dole really "burst into tears" at the sight of a negative article, or had her eyes filled in the way we have come to take for granted as a hallmark of our current commander in chief?

A piece in The National Review last year knocked Dole for being "indecisive," when the examples used to back up the charge spoke more to her politically cautious nature. In the lexicon of stereotypes, indecision, of course, is the corollary to that age-old jab about changing one's mind being a woman's prerogative.

When telling the story of being turned away from the businessmen's meeting so many years ago, Dole spoke of how she argued with the doorman, repeating her name and White House credentials in an effort to change his mind. The doorman was unrelenting, she explained. His reply, according to Dole, went like this: "'Lady, I don't care if your name is Queen Elizabeth; you are not gonna cross this threshold!'"

As Dole prepares to cross the threshold of American presidential politics, the eyes of the nation's women are upon her. And you can bet they will be taking notes on how well she represents their interests. That does not mean, however, that they should not also notice how fairly the press deals with her candidacy.