Women in the Running
By Maya Schenwar
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 08 May 2008
Whether or not we elect a female president
this year, the US has a long way to go when it comes to political gender equality.
America has pretty much agreed that, whether or not Hillary Clinton wins the
Democratic nomination, she will have made history. However, no matter the outcome
of the primary season, the struggle for women's voices to be heard in the political
sphere will be far from over. Despite all the focus on Clinton's gender over
the course of her campaign, there's been surprisingly little discussion of the
gender makeup of the political system as a whole.
Like the rest of the world, the US has been moving forward in terms of women
in politics, but it's doing so in spurts and slower than many of its neighbors.
Ten years ago, this country ranked 37th in terms of women's political representation.
It now sits in 71st place, according to a recent Interparliamentary Union study.
Twenty-eight of the 50 states have not yet elected a female governor. And women
make up only 16 percent of both the US House and the Senate.
Does this mean Americans are inherently more sexist than the people of Rwanda,
Sweden and Argentina (the countries with the highest percentage of female politicians)?
Probably not. According to a Gallup Poll taken before the 2000 election, more
than three-quarters of Americans reject the idea that, "On the whole, men
make better political leaders than women do."
So why aren't we moving forward faster? And is the advent of the first viable
female presidential candidate giving the system a jolt?
Keeping It Normal
One roadblock to political equality for women may be an overly sunny self-perception
on the part of Americans, according to Marie Wilson, founder of the White House
Project, an organization aimed at upping women's political representation, and
author of "Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run
the World."
"People think we're already there," Wilson told Truthout. "They
think we have a political meritocracy. As Americans, we like to think of ourselves
as a fair country. That makes it harder to own up to the facts of the masculinity
of the political system and the normalcy of recruiting men to run for office."
Even triumphs can be deceptive; there's a difference between achieving a milestone
and establishing normalcy. The first woman to serve in the Senate took her oath
in 1922. Yet in 1992, 70 years after that barrier was broken, the Senate contained
only two women. (In November of 1992, four additional women were elected to
the Senate and several more to the House, prompting the media to dub '92 the
"Year of the Woman.")
Thus, according to Wilson, the legislature is still normalizing the inclusion
of women, who are often snubbed when it comes to party leadership's picks for
candidacy. Maintaining a high male-to-female ratio in Congress is considered
a safe route for the parties to take, according to Alaska candidate Diane Benson,
who is neck-and-neck with incumbent Republican Don Yong for the state's single
House seat.
"I have had a tougher time with the party than with voters themselves,"
Benson told Truthout, describing her fight to win her current place in the race.
"Women are perceived as less viable, and the Democrats in this state just
want to make sure it happens, so they go with the person they really think can
make it."
Another current "normality": At the present time, there are no women of color
in the Senate. Benson, if she wins, will become the first Native American woman
in the House. And in all of Congress, there's just one openly lesbian member.
So political progress for women has come in fits and starts - hitting a milestone
and then stalling, moving two steps forward and a half step back.
Measured Momentum
Nowadays, the momentum of political representation is in "two steps forward"
mode, according to Ramona Oliver, communications director at EMILY's List, which
promotes Democratic, pro-choice female candidates.
"The Democratic wave of 2006 was the second-largest increase of women
elected to federal office since 1992's 'The Year of the Woman,'" Oliver
told Truthout. "Democratic women have continued to steadily increase their
numbers in Congress over the last decade, and now with Nancy Pelosi leading
the way as speaker of the House, we hope to make even more gains in 2008."
As Clinton and Obama faced off in North Carolina and Indiana on Tuesday, both
states - neither of which has ever had a female governor - nominated women as
their Democratic gubernatorial candidates. In November, North Carolina Lt. Gov.
Beverly Perdue and former Indiana Congresswoman Jill Long Thompson will strive
to become their states' firsts.
Wilson, who calls the past ten years an era of "slow progress," attributes
much of the current female leadership push to the effect of groups like the
White House Project, which actively recruits women to run for office. Those
efforts are crucial, she said, to counteract the "play-it-safe" party
politics that lead overwhelmingly to male nominees.
One undeniable site of progress lately has been enfranchisement: In 2006, 8.8
million more women than men voted. It's no coincidence that 2006 was also a
banner year for female electees, according to Oliver, who quoted an EMILY's
List adage: "When women vote, women win."
The Clinton Effect
According to Wilson and Oliver, 2008 promises to bring a fresh infusion of
women to the political scene; in many ways, it already has. The excitement surrounding
Clinton's candidacy has attracted female volunteers in droves. Wilson reports
a dramatic increase in attendance at White House Project trainings. On the surveys
filled out during trainings, women often note that they were inspired by the
example of a woman running for president.
The Clinton effect also translates directly to the ballot, no matter how Hillary
herself polls, according to Oliver.
"Senator Clinton's campaign for the presidency has created a tremendously
positive environment for women candidates," Oliver said. "The increase
in turnout for women this primary season has just been remarkable - on Super
Tuesday alone, women voters made up between 55 and 63 percent of the overall
voters. This level of turn out helps women up and down the ballot."
Watching Clinton's candidacy has also coaxed more women onto the ballot in
the first place, according to Wilson.
"Women are getting more involved, from the school board to city council
to state government to Congress," Wilson said. "We already knew this
would happen - what would get them to run is seeing other women run. They can
learn how to fundraise, they can learn how to do political strategy. But when
we've done research on young women, they've said, 'I need to see women running.'
That's the magic.... Men see men in politics all the time."
So, the presence of a viable female presidential candidate is helping to "make
it normal" to see a woman running for high office - regardless of whether
or not Clinton wins. "And," Wilson noted, "with the campaign
going on this long, it's becoming about as 'normal' as it can get!"
Wilson added that, when it comes to breaking the barriers of electoral normalcy,
both Clinton and Obama are "moving women along in a
big way." Electing either candidate would force the party to break old
nomination habits and trust the American public to think past superficial bias
and prejudice.
At the Races
The presence of Clinton isn't the only factor that's boosted female candidates'
odds in 2008; the absence of a host of stalwart incumbents also increases their
chances. This year's multitude of Republican retirements means lots of open
seats, and according to Oliver, EMILY's List has found that women candidates
often do especially well in open seat races. (Barbara Mikulski, the first Democratic
woman elected to the Senate, won her Maryland seat in 1986, when it was vacated
by Charles Mathias Jr.)
"EMILY's List currently has pro-choice Democratic women running in seven
of the ten most competitive open seats this year," Oliver said, adding
that "special elections have already ushered three new fabulous women to
Congress - Laura Richardson, Niki Tsongas, and Jackie Speier just a couple of
weeks ago."
This election year also sees a number of female challengers vying for the seats
of long-time incumbents. In February, lawyer Donna Edwards defeated eight-term
Congressman Albert Wynn in the Maryland primary. Wynn later announced plans
to resign from the House in June, prompting a special election that - in an
overwhelmingly Democratic district - Edwards will probably win.
In Missouri, House hopeful Kay Barnes is running against four-term incumbent
Congressman Sam Graves - a Republican with a NARAL Pro-Choice America rating
of zero percent. Barnes, who was the first female mayor of Kansas City, helped
found the Kansas City Women's Political Caucus and spent part of her early political
career traveling the country, encouraging women to run for office, according
to her campaign director, Steven Glorioso.
Being a female challenger is not without its struggles: Barnes must combat
some easy, gender-based digs from the Graves camp, according to Glorioso.
"Graves is just now getting started with the usual attacks with which
strong women have had to deal, like snipes from his underlings that a woman
is not good with money or not strong on the military," he said. "But
her male critics said many of the same things when she was mayor and she proved
them wrong."
Diane Benson, too, has confronted gender-based obstacles on her path to the
House. She notes that, as a woman, it's been harder for her to attract mainstream
media attention, except when it comes to sensational, gender-specific topics.
A front-page story in the Anchorage Daily News last week chronicled Benson's
history of childhood sexual abuse - not a topic she wanted showcased in her
campaign. The article, Benson said, fell into the mold of "portraying native
women as victims, not as survivors who actually go on to achieve things."
Media outlets often feel more comfortable telling that kind of story than following
the progress of a female politician, she says.
"We need to elevate this discussion," Benson said. "It's almost
like there's a fascination with women as victims, or doing womanly roles, rather
than women in power."
In this sense, according to Benson, increasing women's political representation
will depend on a deep-rooted attitude shift, as voters, party leaders and politicians
begin to change their expectations about what it takes to win.
Ultimately, it seems, it is not one or another great milestone that will jet
women toward political equality in the US. It's about the hard work of maintaining
forward momentum, pushing for greater representation at all levels of government.
"We're in the habit, socially, of thinking that men are the ones in power,"
Benson said. "But we're starting to break that habit. By running, we continually
break down those barriers."
Maya Schenwar is an assistant editor and reporter for Truthout.
-------
Jump to today's Truthout Features:
Print This Story
E-mail This Story