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Feb
3
I’ve been writing about the GOP female elected problem for literally years – including two pieces last summer on how the RNC’s Young Guns have no gunnettes:
GOP continues to starve female leadership pipeline: Sessions’ Young Guns are 12 men, 1 woman
UPDATE: National Federation of Republican Women comments on men outgunning women in “Young Guns”
And just yesterday I blogged about how TIME magazine’s “10 Scott Browns” includes just two women, both of whom are from already very reliable states regarding the support of women in leadership.
And last week I wrote about how South Carolina’s first lady, Jenny Sanford, spent several minutes addressing the lack of women in nearly all areas of South Carolina’s elected government.
So this GOP Still Short on Women thing? Please. (Anyone remember this lame-0 response from Ohio Senate’s Bill Harris from 2007 re: why there are nearly no GOP women in that chamber? In that item, even then-outgoing GOP state senator Joy Padgett said, “It’s important to have several women in the caucus. When you’re looking at representing populations, there just aren’t enough women in the chamber, period.”)
What Jan Larimer really needs to examine and pick apart is this kind of ridiculousness that’s going on in NE Ohio: an article about statehouse seats being swapped among…men, men and more men, unless it’s a man’s wife. And then she takes his seat and he goes for a different man’s seat. At least Walton Hills Mayor Marlene Anielski is in the mix for the Ohio 17th, as is Kelli Perk. Woohoo – two women, and one is a Republican.
Where’s the recruiting? Where’s the bringing in new blood? Where’s the leadership succession planning?
In all the talk about the Ohio GOP’s new faces, new names, where are they? Yeah – no where. No minorities, few women. Even the insurgents appear to be men.
Complaining might make good media, but other than getting the ball rolling toward a solution, that’s it. Time to buck up and work if you want more women in elected office. Folks on the right who complain about how the Ohio Democratic Secretary of State candidate has shaken out might want to take a look at their own conscience when it comes to recruitment and treatment of women. At least the left side’s spats involved multiple female options.
Sad to say that that’s what progress looks like in the land of women getting into politics. But in a way, it’s a sign that it’s becoming normal.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:31 am February 3rd, 2010 in Gender, Government, Ohio, Politics, Sexism, Statehouse, Women
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4 Responses to “Now GOP women complaining re: lack of GOP female pols? Still too little too late”
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Originally posted this on the wrong post. Anyway, Jan Larimer probably isn’t the right person to be talking about recruiting female candidates. Via Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly:
“Women sometimes need a little more handholding, or they need their friends to help them make a decision. And by our going in and talking to them and recruiting and educating and training them to either get involved in a campaign or become a candidate, we’re giving them the tools so that they can do that on their own,” Larimer added.”
Benen also quotes Rush Limbaugh, on Fox: “I’m a huge supporter of women … I don’t know where all this got started. I love the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it.”
Not everyone is depending on the GOP …
In 2010, the direction of the United States will be decided by women. Conservative women. [...] The Kitchen Cabinet is designed to empower conservative women and give them the national voice they deserve. [...] Please join us. Conservative women ARE the majority in America. Let’s act like it.
- The Kitchen Cabinet PAC
@#2 Thanks for leaving a link to The Kitchen Cabinet PAC. I cannot urge you enough to PLEASE find other conservative blogs in Ohio and other states that will work toward your goals. I tout the support of recruiting enthusiastic, intelligent, well-meaning, public-minded, hard-working women all along the political ideological spectrum but the reality is that this blog and its readership skews left. And here in Ohio, I have made good connections with some right of center women whom I know have similar ideas as I do regarding the role of women in politics (active and as leaders!).
Please reach out. The formal party structures, on both sides, continue to need reminding that we would never use only half our brains to function. Why on Earth are we settling for using so far less than 1/2 our population to run our local, state and federal governments?
@#1 Thanks for that link to Benen’s coverage of the Hotline article and the Limbaugh piece. I wrote last year about how Limbaugh was going to hold a Women’s Summit to determine why they don’t like him. It was something else – obviously not to become an annual thing from the sounds of it! But I do hope to follow up and see if he’s going to do it again. You can read about his effort from last year here.
As for Larimer and the handholding, what’s so fascinating is that the data that gives rise to the knowledge that we do in fact need to ask women to run far more than we need to ask men is being completely re-spun from the way nonpartisan and left of center groups have interpreted this knowledge for more than a decade (see The White House Project as an example or read Jennifer Lawless’s work on women, politics, running for office and ambition).
It’s not about hand-holding and “needing their friends.” What it’s about is knowing that other women have done it, can do it and that the rewards are worth the effort and include making a difference. Women are notoriously calculating in terms of deciding to commit to something like a run for office. Women who run tend to win – Democrats run more often than non-Democrats and they win even more often.
I just would never demean this by calling it “handholding” – we want proof that it will all matter. Men, on the other hand, as we’ve read over and over and over, often will assert things they know nothing about, will put themselves out there as experts simply because, whereas women often work to the bone to demonstrate why their opinion is sound and matters.
Anyway – It’s this sexist bias within the GOP itself, from men and women, that makes it so frustrating to watch, from my perspective. It just doesn’t have to be that way.
When women see that a biased, sexist pale male structure continues to dominate how things get done, they either have to double and triple down on what they’re willing to put into the effort, or they find another way to get things done. Women also do that a lot – we don’t stop, we just find another way – including ways that don’t involve politics. None other than Sarah Palin herself is an example of that – though I think she gave up WAY too easily.