Quote:
Originally posted by XOMichelle
How sad!
They just count the number of women in elected offices, no? Is this just national ones?
And why are the replies to this post negative? What are you all defending? It's kind of sad that we have a culture where women aren't as involved in politics as they could be, or perhaps should be. Whatever the reasons may be (women don't feel comfortable running, women don't feel they would be elected if they ran, or women run and don't get elected), it's not a good sign.
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I doubt anyone here will claim women to be less capable or qualified for public office, but Rudey raises an interesting point - if I'm not mistaken, there are strikingly low numbers of women
running for office, and that as a proportion, women who
do run are elected at a proportionate rate.
Now, this raises other issues, most glaringly the nomination process for offices that require them, but the sad fact is that, in a society where 51% of the population is female, far less than 10% of candidates are female.
I realize I'm not proposing a solution, but I feel it's important that we sift through the issue and find the actual roots of the problem first.
I'm not defending anything, by the way - I think it's just as sad as you do, but I'm not sure how to solve the problem. I do think, however, that in recent years we've seen slow progress, with highly-touted female governors, senators, and cabinet officials coming into the public eye, and generally performing well. I just don't think that the gender bias (on either side) will be eliminated without this kind of slow progress - it's a time-consuming task, changing peoples' minds.