In fact," she said, men have more executive ability nowadays since men have more experience. But that is not inbred, women I know today are just as talented as young men I don't know if a woman mayor could have been elected at an election. People are suspicious of a woman's ability to be an executive. I was elected as City Councillor, and that is not an executive position."

Many people have speculated on what the mayor of Cambridge does Some have described the job as that of the city's "official greeter," since all the hiring and firing and budget considerations are given to the city manager, who is selected by the Council. On the books the job is called "part-time," but Barbara Ackermann finds herself making it a full-time task. As chairman of the School Committee and of the City Council, she is responsible for two sets of meetings. Very concerned about the problems of the city, she considers working with the state--on behalf of the young and the elderly as one of her major tasks: "City government does not have that much to do in the lives of the well-to-do," she says, "just things like snow and trash removal. But in the lives of the elderly and young, the city provides more than just a caretaker. For example, I spend a lot of time trying to get the state to provide food for the elderly."

Last summer Ackermann was a delegate for Shirley Chisholm at the Democratic National Convention, not because Shirley was a woman but because she was concerned with the problems of the city. "At first I was for Lindasy and the Chisholm, because-she was the only city person," Said Ackermann. "Two-thirds of the people are in cities-that's where the problem are."

BARBARA ACKERMANN was born in Sweden, where her father was an American Council. She went to school for five years each in Dublin and France, and had to leave Europe at the start of World War II. "My family were refugees when I was 14 and my father escaped Frances just as the Germans were entering," she explained. "I guess travelling around so much gave me a broad experience in schools. In Dublin I went to a school with an open classroom which first gave me my love of progressive education. In my French Iycee, on the other hand, I learned how not to teach kids. "The Ackermanns moved to Connecticut, and Barbara went to school at Smith where she majored in Latin and Greek. Her husband is Paul Kurt Ackermann, professor of German Literature at Boston University and editor of The Boston University Journal. She has two children who went to B.U. and are presently in Switzerland.

When Ackermann first ran for School Committee her children were 10 and 13 years old. "Being on the School Committee took less time than if I went to work," she said. "When I got on the Council and was at least paid I could afford a housekeeper. You have to make sure you budget the time to spend with your children. Although she is presently trying to push a day-care proposal through the City Council, Ackermann is not sure whether she personally would use day-care.

Women ought to go to work and they to have options," she said. However I am also very concerned about children's rights. But it isn't any better for children if they have to stay home with sour and angry, intellectual women who don't have the chance to work. There should be the option, but I don't think day care would have been my route."

Barbara Ackermann may have entered politics in the typical way a woman is usually elected to office--through the school system, which is considered a woman's natural domain--but she has successfully managed to debunk the preconceptions and stereotypes a woman in politics is likely to be faced with. Not a tough feminist, she has enjoyed being a wife and mother. But once she jumped into politics, it was total immersion: She is now as tough a political fighter for what she believes in as anyone who grew up in the party machine.

Ackermann seems to have entered politics with the motto "carpe diem". When a political opportunity comes along, she grabs it. As she said, "I didn't think of going into politics until it happened." In this way she has progressed from member of the PTA, to School Committee, to City Council to mayor. Will she go on for higher office? "Of course I'm interested in something on the statewide level," she says. "It just depends what opens up."