51% Is A Minority

It doesn't make sense, does it?  But that's the fact: Women make up 51% of our national population and we are only represented by 14.7% in the U.S. Congress.  Granted, this is an improvement from what it used to be, but consider the numbers - out of the 11,744 people to ever serve in Congress (both houses), only 223 have been women and only 79 of the 535 current members of Congress are women.

The other interesting fact I found is that there have only been 26 women governors ever.  This issue gets to the heart of women in leadership roles because governor and president positions are executive vs. legislative, i.e. many people still have a more difficult time picturing women in executive leadership roles whereas they have become more comfortable with women in legislative roles.

Take California for example: we have four powerful women leaders: Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer and Anna Eshoo.  But have we ever had a woman governor?  No.  When will we?  It's difficult to say, but Jackie Speier, the woman with the most name recognition in statewide California politics, ran for Lieutenant Governor in the Democratic primary and was defeated.  I worked on Jackie's campaign and she said more than once that she believes a woman needs to be elected Lieutenant Governor before she can be elected Governor of CA, so we could be a long way from it.  There is occasionally speculation that Dianne Feinstein might consider running for CA Governor, but I think that's all it is - speculation.  This is the same issue as in corporations where women in VP roles are becoming more common, but the glass ceiling seems to still be below the top spot.

This election could mean one exciting step - if the Democrats get enough seats in the House, their leader, Nancy Pelosi, will become Speaker of the House, the first woman ever.  This is a big deal not only because of her sway over votes in Congress, but she will be 3rd in line, should anything happen to the President and Vice President, succession-wise.  This is one case where a woman in a legislative role has stood out and become the first party leader in the House and stands to break more barriers.

People like to love or hate Hillary Clinton, but no matter what your opinion of her is, there is no way to deny she has opened up many more possibilities for women in politics.  The reason is not because she's a Senator but because she has major name recognition and can pack a house, raising millions of dollars, far surpassing any other woman in politics.

Women are involved in all levels of government and politics, of course, but it's still more common to find men in elected office nearly everywhere.  Part of this reason, as research has found, is because women wait to be invited to run rather than self-selecting, and when we do run, we downplay our own qualifications rather than overstating them.

I had the unique opportunity to participate in a cutting edge political training program for women considering running for office as Democrats here in the Bay Area called Emerge.  The program emphasized some of the same principles I learned in another training program for women entrepreneurs - getting beyond the fear of pitching yourself and the fear of asking for money.  These are two big hurdles women tend to have.  (For Republicans, there's a program called Winning Women, but I couldn't find out much about it online.)  The parties may view some women's issues differently, but our challenges getting elective are often the same.

Equal representation is a long way off, but the hurdles we face are not just in voting women into office, but in encouraging them-us-you (and your daughters) to run and raise funds to run.  Women's issues will only ever get the attention they truly deserve when we are well represented.  Every election counts.

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I'd like to credit the stats above to voterunlead.org, run by The White House Project.  It's a nonpartisan/multipartisan effort to get more women in office and get a woman elected President of the United States.  I was featured on their site back in 2003 as part of their campaign to get real stories from women involved in politics.

For more interesting statistics, see their "Women and Elected Office" facts page and see their Resources page for other organizations (nonpartisan and partisan) related to women and voting or women in politics.
http://www.voterunlead.org/facts/women_electedoffice.cfm