Friends of the rule of law are mourning the death of Janet Reno , the first woman to hold the job of attorney general. But she was far more than just an important historical first. In the 1990s, I ran the Justice Department’s press office, which gave me a front-row seat for the culture clashes that came with being a “first woman.” And I watched the D.C. and entertainment establishments grow baffled over a person too straightforward to figure out. Like Sandra Day O’Connor and other pioneers of the Mad Men era, Reno came of age when the ceiling for women was lower and stronger. “When I was in high school it was unusual for women to go to college,” she would sometimes tell audiences, “and when I was in college people said women didn’t go to law school.” When she graduated from Harvard Law she was offered legal secretary jobs. (So was O’Connor.) And after several decades in Miami as one of America’s best prosecutors, her reward upon arriving in 1990s Washington was a whisper campaign that any career woman who was single and childless must be a lesbian. (“I am just an awkward old maid who has a very great attraction to men,” she was forced to joke.) The Economist called her a “54-year-old, 6’2” pipe-smoking spinster.” Reno got over being historic within minutes. “I’m the third woman Bill Clinton thought of for the job,” she told me once. (Two other female nominees had withdrawn their names after not properly paying taxes on their dome
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