Women and Politics

Cross-posted from Women’s Media Center and Huffington Post

Women leaders have shown they know how to work together, whether it’s in the public or private sector. Women’s Campaign Forum President Sam Bennett describes a new initiative to put enough women in office this year to overcome the political impasse plaguing our nation’s lawmakers.
I know I’m not the only one to find myself watching the news in disbelief day after day. We listen to pundits, elected officials, and even the vice president call our government “broken.” This sentiment was only reinforced at last week’s White House health care summit when the partisan stalemate continued—only four women had been invited.

Who’s at fault and how do we get out of the seemingly endless deadlock? Some dare to argue that men are to blame. Somewhat earlier in the health care debate, Representative Carol Shea-Porter said of her sister House members: “We go to the ladies room, and we just roll our eyes at what’s being said out there. And the Republican women said when we were fighting over the health care bill, if we sent the men home, we could get this done this week.”

A bold statement? Yes. But studies have shown that women, who hold only 90 out of 535 seats in Congress, legislate differently—often being more collaborative and ensuring more win-win outcomes—than men. Women in the House and Senate stood together against the Nelson and Stupak amendments, just as women’s organizations banded together to ensure health care reform’s effectiveness and prevent the elimination of any existing rights.

And it’s not just women asserting that we need more women in public office. For our Women’s Campaign Forum (WCF) Parties of Your Choice Gala in New York next Thursday, we’ve gathered prominent leaders from the fields of business, media, theater, politics, fashion, and publishing. Folks like NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Pash, The View co-host Sherri Shepherd, musician/singer-songwriter Moby, former 60 Minutes Executive Editor Philip Scheffler, fashion designer Vivienne Tam, and actor Alexander Chaplin will come together to support the need to increase women’s political representation.

These WCF events have mobilized supporters from across the country for three decades now. But this year, it’s with a much greater sense of urgency. To underline the need right now to elect more women to fix our broken government, we will debut our national awareness campaign (Who Needs More Women in Government? Everyone.) via a performance piece written by and starring a broad array of female leaders. Performers—including former CEO Christie Hefner, WNBA President Donna Orender, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth “Liz” Shuler, and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner—will be perched on ladders in the middle of Christie’s Auction House at the gala reception to command attention in a launch of a campaign designed to disturb the complacency of our nation.

Most people, when hearing that the U.S. ranks 84^th in the world, behind Afghanistan and Cuba, in the percentage of women in the national legislature, are briefly surprised—“Oh wow, I didn’t think it was that bad”—but the thought process stops there. We need everyone to realize the true weight of this disparity: That women’s political inequality isn’t just a “shame.” It’s actually halting progress and damaging our country.

As Womenomics authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman point out, research has shown the many benefits of having more women at the decision-making table—leading to a wake-up call among many U.S. companies. In addition to focusing on collaboration, women seek out long-term results and tend to take fewer risks. The positive results of women’s leadership can be demonstrated by corporations’ performance: “By all measures, more women in your company means better performance. Pepperdine [University] found that the Fortune 500 firms with the best records of putting women at the top were 18 to 69 percent more profitable than the median companies in their industries.”

Considering we’re currently at war, suffering from a severe economic recession, and unable to fix a broken health care system, I have to ask: When will our political system acknowledge women’s unique ability to enact change?

Given our current state of wheel-spinning and political gridlock, it would behoove us to make 2010 another Year of the Woman—one that this time will have staying power. (We harked back to that historic 1992 election year for the cover of our gala invitation, which shows women walking up steps on the Hill.) And yes, we need more women on both sides of the aisle. That’s why WCF works to recruit female candidates from all parties, across the country, at all levels of office. But as we’ve learned with Sarah Palin, not all women support reproductive health choices, and we acknowledge that finding a Republican candidate who will stand up for women’s health can be difficult. Yet the country is hungry for female moderate Republican candidates who will do just that.

WCF currently has more than 30 endorsed candidates for 2010—18 of whom are running for Congress. And we only expect those numbers to increase, as more applications flood in every week. But will we really move the needle on women’s unequal representation this November, or even this decade?

The Women’s Campaign Forum has been in the game for 36 years now and endorsed thousands of women. When we were founded, there were no female senators and 16 congresswomen. Since 1974, the percentage of women in Congress has gone from three to 17 percent—only a 14 percent increase. Today we have organizations all over the country working to elect more women, yet our progress has stagnated. Many estimate that at our current rate of growth, it will take more than 70 years to achieve political gender equality.

So what’s it going to be, America? Will we continue to stand agape at our broken government the way children stare at a broken toy, or will we answer the wake-up call and elect more women?

I had the pleasure of speaking with Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley at an event the other night. Surrounded by a black and gray-suited ocean of D.C. supporters, Coakley took the time to extend her hand, look me in the eye, and say, “Sam, thanks so much for being here. WCF was my first endorsement. I’ll never forget that.”

Despite the storm of attacks swirling around her, despite the opposition sniffing opportunity in the air, dropping millions to win a seat at all costs, Coakley was gracious, focused and determined—a leader if I ever met one. In the midst of all the chaos, she took the time to thank an organization who has been with her since the very beginning of her political career.

I’m reminded of when Hillary Clinton won my home state, Pennsylvania in the presidential primary. Only on stage to celebrate for a brief moment, she stepped down from the podium and dove into the crowd, shaking hands to personally thank folks. Classy to the bone. In my book, it’s what people do that tells you everything you need to know about them.

Martha’s record of standing up for public safety and women’s rights speaks for itself—Martha is the right woman for the job.

Now we all have to do our part to make sure she gets the job, no matter where we live. Always remember that every vote truly counts: I lost my first electoral outing for mayor of Pennsylvania’s 3rd largest city by 46 votes.

So do everything you can—no act, no financial donation is too small. We can’t let the opposition swoop in like vultures to deceive the public into believing their lies about Coakley.

The bad guys can steal this race unless we do everything we can. Support Coakley today and make sure everyone you know in Massachusetts goes out to vote for her tomorrow!

It is with the utmost pride that tonight WCF, Chiefs of Staff, elected officials, and even some very special celebrity bartenders toast to the women staffers on the Hill—the Rising Stars of the political arena.

Over forty Chiefs of Staff took the time to shine the spotlight on the incredible work and accomplishments of young women working on the Hill. For that, I thank them—too often the achievements of women go unsung.

The Hill’s Got Talent is so important because it emphasizes the essential aspect of mentoring in building an unshakable women’s network. The movement to fill the pipeline full of viable female candidates is not the endeavor of a single generation, but a collaborative effort of all ages, all across this country. It started with the first female trailblazers bold enough to stand and say, “I’m going to run.”

I ran for office, and I lost. But I won a first-hand experience of the campaign and election obstacles and the sort of leadership it takes to overcome them. My campaign won’t go down in history as a win, but it was successful in clearing, if even slightly, a path through the uncertainty to successful public policy and women’s equal footing on that stage.

But leadership doesn’t stop after a campaign after an office is won or lost. Leadership is extending a hand to the next generation and saying, “please, take it, let’s change this nation together.” It is the obligation, the privilege, of established women leaders, or women who have even taken that brave first step to seek a position of leadership—it is our obligation to mentor the young women on the rise.

It is essential that we support, teach, and encourage women to go beyond working for an incumbent—to become one themselves.

Here’s the scene: I’m one of two progressive women sitting across the table from two conservative gals. We’re taping for PBS’ To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe. Despite our differences, this episode found us agreeing more often than not.

When camera stopped rolling I exclaimed, “this is why we need more women in elected office!” Research shows that women are far more likely than men to arrive at consensus, even when value systems are radically different.

But to the idea of more women running for office, one of my conservative sisters shook her head saying, “No woman in her right mind would choose to deal with the nastiness of politics and if she has kids, why would she put them through that?” I countered, “What man doesn’t run because he’s worried about his kids? None.”  Everyone nodded. “You have a point there Sam,” she said.

My two daughters, now 25 and 23, went through my two bruising Mayoral races and with their little brother, now 7, weathered a horrific U.S. Congressional race where my gender was used unflinchingly as a weapon of mass destruction against me. But in these races, I demonstrated that when half-truths, lies and innuendo are hurled, you can emerge with dignity and more political capital than when you started. I demonstrated there are things worth fighting for. I can’t imagine better life lessons to give to my children.

When I encourage other talented women to run, I’m met with, “I have projects I’m working on right now that I want to finish…and it will be easier on the kids if I wait.” But oftentimes the opportunity to make their bid is now, as the chance probably won’t be there later. Do the guys worry about projects they haven’t finished when an opportunity to seize the brass ring presents itself? No.

We women talk ourselves out of running before we even get started. Research shows that women think of running less than the guys and then, of course, end up running less.

My two rules when I ran for Mayor and U.S. Congress were:

1. A happy mom who is personally stretching herself = happy kids.
2. When opportunity comes knocking, you have to answer the call, NOW, not later. Don’t wait. JUST DOING IT makes you/your family/your kids/your supporters ready for the next opportunity.

Check out this roster of women I’ve met so far running in 2010. These are all gals who support reproductive choices and options - and are JUST DOING IT! Even if you only give them $5, give them something online now. And ask a woman to run for office, including yourself, who should run for office one day.

No more excuses, ladies. Now is the time for action.

I was saddened to hear about the recent sexist attacks against Martha Coakley, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins.

As a former Congressional candidate, I know exactly how it feels to be attacked simply for being a woman. I never realized just how sexist politics is until I decided to run for office.

My local paper ran an unacceptable quote about me on the front page during my race. Now, I’ve decided to tell my story on camera to bring these kinds of misogynistic attacks to light.

Click here to hear my story and help us put a stop to sexist attacks.

Help us fight sexism in politics today: we’ve provided the emails of all four recent offending members of the media so you can contact them and speak out against their offensive sexist rhetoric.

I’ve attended Netroots Nation in the past as a candidate, which helped propel my online campaign to a whole new level. This year, I had the pleasure of attending Netroots as the President/CEO of WCF, which was a tremendously enriching experience.

It was inspiring to listen to and meet women like Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend—who I watched win one of the first annual WMC Women in Media awards earlier this year, presented to her by Gloria Steinem.

Of many panels I attended, one that especially stood out to me was about feminist blogging, organized by former WCF blogger and PunditMom, Joanne Bamberger. What a thrill it was to hear Amanda Marcotte, Jill Filipovic, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Lindsay Beyerstein, and Pam talk about their pioneering work as feminist bloggers! These remarkable young women leaders are the future of the movement.

What really stood out for me was that as women bloggers, their very presence on a blog required the addition of “trap doors” and enhanced “TOS (Terms of Service)” due to the instant misogyny their presence elicited. Striking. These are the hurdles that men never experience.

There are also, of course, challenges that are unique to women candidates. We all agreed, audience and panel alike, that we cannot let blatant sexism thrive in our political system anymore.

I shared my story of when I was running for U.S. Congress in 2008: My local paper plucked from the internet this juicy tidbit and decided it was appropriate to run day after day on the front page (I apologize for the profanity):

“Sammy Bennett is a phony political wh***, who makes cheap political opportunists look like fuc**** Mother Theresa. Even her c*** is made of plastic.”

Yes, folks—misogyny is alive and well. We must create a unified force against all kinds of institutionalized and accepted sexism, whether it be as blatant and crass as I encountered, or more covert.

With the support of the amazing women activists and bloggers I met at Netroots, I know we have the players on the field to fight—and one day win—this battle.

After 32 incredible years of serving as the President of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Kim Gandy is moving on to be a resident Fellow this fall at the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School. I want to congratulate Terry O’Neill, NOW’s new president. As the new kid on the block in the women’s community, it’s my job to learn the ropes from the women who have dedicated the whole of their professional lives striving to help create a level playing field for women in this nation.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with many longstanding women’s leaders, and I’ve been completely blown away by the openness, receptivity and generosity I’ve encountered. By all these benchmarks, Kim Gandy stands out. Recently unable to stay at my usual digs in D.C., Kim, husband and know-their-own-mind daughters lent me a pillow, a shower and a delicious barbecue. Leading the largest feminist organization nationally with 500,000 women and 5,987 chapters strong, Kim is also a dedicated mom and wife with warmth and humor to spare. No wonder she’s so universally well-liked.

Kim’s departure is self-admittedly bittersweet:

“Term limits are good, but frustrating when there’s still so much to do!”

Her concern?

“Fifty years after Brown vs. the Board of Education I had higher hopes for the progress we would have made and the progress that would have been sustained.”

Fifty years later, we still aren’t where we need to be—lagging well behind the rest of the world in the number of women in public leadership. I don’t know about you, but I’m mad as heck and ain’t gonna take it anymore!

So what am I dedicating the hours I have left on this planet to? Getting more women elected in this nation. Not only do women at the legislative and decision-making table ensure better results and a healthier nation, it sends all the right messages to the women and especially the young women of this nation.

After fifty years, we should have come further. Join me and support a woman who has the courage to run for office today, at all levels, because we need women at all levels running for office.

TODAY’S HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT: Donate today to a women candidate. Our nation will be stronger for it!