Thursday, February 4, 2010, the Women and Politics Institute at American University sponsored a panel discussion about the inequity of women in elected office. One-hundred and thirty people from around the country participated.
Panelists included: Anne Kornblut, a White House Correspondent for the Washington Post, the author of Notes from the Cracked Ceiling, Norah O’Donnell, the Chief Washington Correspondent for MSNBC, Jessica Yellin, a Political Correspondent on CNN and Jennifer Lawless, the Director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University.
O’Donnell commented, “Women are 54 percent of the electorate and 45 percent are donating to campaigns. Women have money and are spending it.”
Clearly, women are interested in politics. However, when women run for office, her credibility is called into question.
“There’s still a really intense focus on women candidate’s family and what that says about her in a way that may not be true, is not true for men,” Kornblut said. “A man with five kids, no big deal. Family man. A woman with five kids, how could she possibly do all of that.”
Studies conducted by the White House Project found that women face tougher scrutiny than men. Beyond their skills, women’s clothes, hairstyles, physique and child rearing styles are all called into question. Even the pure essence of being a woman is feared women candidates to be perceived as a negative by voters and male colleagues.
Most women candidates and politicians do not embrace their womanhood. This was seen to have been one of the many flaws in Martha Coakley’s failed Senatorial campaign in Massachusetts.
Jessica Yellin stated that after the Year of the Woman in 1992, it was thought that all of these softer political issues such as welfare reform, childcare and poverty would be center stage and that these newly elected women would support. “They did the opposite to prove they had backbone [in a man’s world].”
Kornblut states in her book that Sarah Palin did indeed crack the glass ceiling for women. She found supporters in the conservative, white men demographic. She also embraced her sexuality and didn’t try to hide it.
“From the moment she was chosen,” Yellin stated, “She was talking about childbirth, showing her kids behind her.”
Another similar image was when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House in 2006. She had her grandchildren on stage with her.
During an interview with Kornblut, Pelosi has stated that voters will look at you as a mother and infer credibility. Patty Murray, for example, ran as the mom in tennis shoes.
However, Pelosi, Murray and Palin are in the minority. A lot of women struggle to find a way to fit in a man’s world with their different ideas and viewpoints. Women politicians seem hesitant to embrace their femininity.
Yellin went on to comment that if Hillary Clinton had embraced her femininity in Iowa, then the 2008 primary could have had very different results.
Women need to be confident in their abilities and skills. Jennifer Lawless commented that this is partly due to the fact that women aren’t asked. Women, unlike men, don’t look at their resumes and believe that they can be president. Instead, they believe they need to develop specific skills rather than develop them on the job.
Running Start, a bipartisan 501 (c) 3 organization head quartered in Washington, D.C., is working to encourage women to run for office by helping them develop public speaking skills, networking, fundraising and providing media training.
As of 2010, women hold 17 percent of the seats in Congress. Only twelve percent of sitting governors are women.
“Where it seemed inevitable in 2006 that there was going to be a woman president, that in 2010 it’s not inevitable,” Kornblut said, commenting on her book, Notes from the Cracked Ceiling.
“Now, do I think it will happen some day? I think certainly it could happen some day, but I don’t think it’s going to happen by accident. I think it will take a lot of thought and work and people thinking about it and a [woman] candidate running very smartly and being exceptional. I don’t think it’s as easy as I think some people thought it was, back when it seemed like Hillary Clinton was going to run and win. It was no big deal.”
Comments