Women In Government
Posted in Career Fields
With the election of incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the first ever woman Speaker of the House there is a general sense that the 'marble ceiling' regarding women in government has been broken. With 71 women serving in the House until 2007 that feeling could well be justified. In a field that has been and is still being dominated by men, those numbers are heartening. However there is still a long way to go before there is a woman sitting in the White House.
Women in government isn't as rare a sight as it used to be. But there is still room for change. While historically women have come into power because of their name or what is called "legacy positions" there is now a growing number who have been elected because of their own right. We still see women come into power because of their family name, most commonly in Southeast Asia in the Philippines and Indonesia. There is now more women getting elected into the parliament in Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain and the US Congress and Senate. Yes there is just change in the world of politics but it is still glaringly unequal.
In the United States the factors against women in government has been divided into the two major parties. According to the research book Breaking the Political Glass Ceiling: Women and Congressional Election female Democratic House members tend to win elections in states that are more liberal, more educated and much wealthier than those won by male Democratic members of the House. On the other side of the coin female Republican House members win in states that are 'less Republican'. Women can best compete on a platform that tackles health care, education, and care about the underclasses.
Rural, Southern and more traditional states are unfriendly to women candidates. The ten best places for women to run in Congress are: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, D.C., Miami and Cleveland. Women Democrats have outrun their Republican counterparts in being elected to Congress by nearly 2 to 1. Since 1916 only 203 women have been elected to the US House and 26 women to the Senate. In short what the facts show is that the more liberal the state the more likely a women candidate running and winning.
Raising the funds in the obscenely expensive US elections may also contribute to why women can't compete as much as their male counterparts. Big companies provides the funding for political aspirants and these companies are led by male C.E.O's who would rather have one of the boys on a House or Senate seat. A conspiracy? Just the bare facts. Unless a woman has the force of personality, drive and connections of a Nancy Pelosi there isn't much she can do.
Women once they are elected have to live up to a whole different set of expectations that their male colleagues. Women are still held to a higher level of scrutiny. Women bring in different advisers and they reach out to different constituent groups. There is always the expectation that when women come into power things are going to change drastically. When this doesn't happen, the woman official receives more flack than President Bush. Whether or not this is unfair remains to be seen.
What is striking is that despite the facts that women outperform men in school, and more women are entering law and higher education, and that there are more women in middle management positions; only a few have made it on the top of government. The stark facts are that women will never reach equality in politics unless there is action taken to take down the marble ceiling. If democracy is to live up to its ideal of representing the interests of all the people then women must be represented in all levels of government. Without this half of the world's population will remain second class citizens
