Women and Politics

Cross-posted from my account at The Huffington Post

Will 2010 go down in history as the “Anti-Year of the Woman?”

Given the track record for women candidates already this year, I would say it’s a distinct possibility. So far, we’ve seen Dede Scozzafava, Martha Coakley, Jennifer Brunner, Connie Saltonstall, Colleen Hanabusa, Elaine Marshall, and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter stunted, dismissed, and undermined by their own political parties.

These women come from both sides of the aisle, which is one of the many important points made by National Journal reporter Erin McPike in her recent piece about the struggle of female candidates.

The obstacles to women’s political success are many: lack of party support, lack of recruitment, ingrained sexism, and male-dominated leadership of both parties.

Yes, the odds stacked against women candidates seem insurmountable. However, I am proud to say that the Women’s Campaign Forum (WCF) has been addressing each of these problems since 1974–and we’re not about to give up now.

WCF is the oldest national non-partisan organization dedicated to increasing women’s political participation, at all levels of office. We support women from the very earliest stages of their political careers.

Here’s how we tackle four of the biggest problems facing women candidates:

Lack of Party Support

We know the old boys’ club is alive and well on both sides of the aisle. As each woman this year has been squeezed out or rejected by their own party, WCF has been right there by their side. We watched, many times in shock, at how the political system blatantly damaged talented female candidates.

But this is exactly why WCF exists. We aren’t about politics as usual. We don’t wait for the masses and establishment to throw their collective weight behind a woman to support her–we’re there from the very beginning.

We invest in the woman–not just the particular race she happens to be in at that time. We focus on the political careers of our candidates, seeing their individual gifts and talents.

Not bound by party politics, WCF has been able to uniquely support women in this intimate way for 36 years.

But electing women from both parties is the only way we will ever reach gender equality in our government. A non-partisan approach is essential. We will continue to look for ways to invest in women Republican candidates who support reproductive health choices to ensure that the road to women’s equal representation is paved.

Women’s Lack of Recruitment

Thanks to the brilliant research of Jennifer Lawless, we know that women are:

• 50% less likely than men to seriously consider running for office.
• 30% less likely to actually run.
• One-third less likely to view themselves as qualified to run for office.
• One-third less likely to be asked to run for office.

WCF’s She Should Run program addresses these facts head-on. We know that if women aren’t even thinking about running for office that they need to be asked–a lot. She Should Run’s easy online platform helps us encourage women across the country to consider running for office, no matter what political party they may choose.

Through She Should Run, women are asked to consider running by someone they know and trust–which often greatly impacts a woman’s decision to become a candidate.

Ingrained Sexism

Sexism remains one of the largest factors hurting women candidates. WCF has repeatedly spoken out against misogynistic remarks made about women public figures from both parties. We work with our candidates to ensure they are prepared to handle the toxic political atmosphere that has been created for women.

When the sexism was flung most recently at Sen. Olympia Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins, Martha Coakley, Rep. Betty Sutton, Sen. Mary Landrieu, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Secretary Jennifer Brunner, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, WCF and I were there speaking out and saying, “not on our watch.”

Male-Dominated Party Leadership

The list of Republican and Democratic Party leaders provided by McPike speaks for itself: Women have almost no power in their own political party. Clearly women can’t rely on anyone else but ourselves to increase our numbers in public office.

This is why WCF stresses the importance of women’s mentorship at all levels of office as well as positions of support. As was recently reported by Erika Lovley in POLITICO, women are still largely underrepresented in the offices of Congressional members. We look to help foster women helping each other during our Hill’s Got Talent and Hail to the Chiefs special programs.

We know that if we want to see real change, we must see more women at the top.

I hope that many will stand with us to work for women’s leadership at all levels of office, across the country, and from all political parties.

If we truly want to advance women’s rights, we need women who support reproductive health choices for all. If we truly want to reach gender equality in our government, we must support women on both sides of the aisle.

This post was submitted by Jean Qiao, WCF Communications Fellow

America is hungry for moderate republican women.

In her recent appearance on Fox’s America’s News HQ, WCF President/CEO Sam Bennett argued that in order for the GOP to succeed in gaining more votes the 2010 election cycle, they must recruit more women.

When talking about the special election for Massachusetts Senate, Bennett said:

“Brown took that seat again in no small part because he was in the middle of the ground and he supports, as a majority of the Americans want to see supported, an American’s right to choose their own reproductive choices and options”

Believe it or not, only 21 Republican women serve in the 111th U.S. Congress; four in the Senate and 17 in the House of Representatives. With Republican women representing only 4% of Congress, you would think that the GOP would take the hint and rally its support behind their moderate women candidates.

Apparently numbers is not enough of a wake-up-call. Let’s not forget the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional district last year. The Republican Party decided to back Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman, drastically yanking their support at the last minute for previously RNC-endorsed candidate Dede Scozzafava,  leading to the suspension of her campaign.

If the majority of the American people support women’s reproductive freedoms, isn’t it about time the GOP jump on that bandwagon as well?

Click here to see the full Fox America’s News HQ video on WCF’s YouTube channel.

This post was submitted by Jean Qiao, WCF Communications Fellow

In January, WCF President/CEO Sam Bennett was a guest on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. Along with NOW President Terry O’Neill, Bennett discussed the sexism and double standards that greatly affected Martha Coakley’s race for Massachusetts Senate.

During the energetic banter, Bennett made it no secret to Matthews all the viewers that double standards still cripple the campaigns of female candidates. Bennett touched upon how the media scrutinized her serious demeanor, being called “ice queen” as well as the media’s response to her opponent’s Cosmopolitan centerfold:

“Bennett: Her opponent, nude male centerfold gets a total pass, and here’s Martha Coakley called an ice queen, if she was a guy, Chris, she would have been called dignified.

Matthews: And if she had done the centerfold?

Bennett: She wouldn’t even have been in the race. It wouldn’t even happen. It would have been a deal-killer for her. It’s about a double standard, it happens all the time.”

Watch Bennett’s engaging conversation with Matthews on WCF’s YouTube channel.

This post was submitted by Jean Qiao, WCF Communications Fellow

The defeat of Martha Coakley on Tuesday meant a field day for political analysts and bloggers, all trying to concoct reasons and theories on why an extremely qualified woman lost her battle to the Senate in a historically liberal state. Everything from her laziness to her personality have been scrutinized and analyzed to no end.

But what the media outlets do not realize is that by focusing all their efforts on scrutinizing both Coakley and Brown, they easily put Coakley at a disadvantage. How easy? Easy as 1, 2, 3.

1.    Give Coakley a nickname that sticks

When Martha Coakley refused to answer a campaign finance question in early October, Boston Herald columnist Lauren Beckham Falcone deemed her an Ice Queen. Imagine the way this rather catchy nickname was spun in the mainstream media and in the online blogging community. Would you want to vote for a woman who shows little to no emotion and is known as the “ice queen,” or would you rather give your vote to a young and attractive lad who has a smile that can light up an entire room, despite his stance on issues? Oh and slap in a strategically-selected photo of Coakley with her scariest facial expression right next to an airbrushed image of Brown waving to his supporters. The juxtaposition is lethal.

2.    Knowledge of sports = a good Senator

When you’re from the Northeast, baseball team affiliations can make or break a friendship. And in a special election campaign, apparently it can make or break your victory. Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling made quite a splash after she mistakenly called him “another Yankee fan.”

Surely someone who is running for office in the state of Massachusetts should be able distinguish all the Yankee team members from the Red Sox team members. If you can’t do that you’re obviously unfit to be a member of the United States Senate who spends a majority of their time in Washington.

3.    Post nude pictures online of the male candidate

I clearly remember when Cosmo released rather revealing pictures of Scott Brown, who said he was a former model. Most of the responses ranged from, “oh my gosh what a stud,” to a general sense of apathy. Apparently it was no surprise that a male politician running for office wearing absolutely nothing evoked such an apathetic and even a little bit of a positive response. Conservative journalist Kathleen Parker wrote:

“He’s Joe Six-Pack with a law degree and 30 years in the National Guard. A lieutenant colonel with the Army Judge Advocate General Corps, he’s also a tri-athlete and a Mr. Mom to his busy wife, Boston TV news reporter Gail Huff”.

Imagine the kind of response Coakley would receive had the media found and publicized nude pictures of her. I can just see it now: Ice queen-baseball-hating Woman reveals nude pictures of herself. Something tells me that would not have been spun in a positive light. I dare say that if she even made it past the primary, the nude photos would completely overshadow and ruin her campaign. The double standards at play both here and in all political races across the country are painfully obvious.

When will you female candidates learn? You can’t be too emotional, that makes you seem weak. But don’t be too cold, that makes you an Ice Queen. Definitely don’t focus on your gender, but don’t ignore it either.

Talk about your family and kids, but not too much, because a busy candidate can’t be a good mother. If you don’t have kids, you’d better be extra warm and fuzzy.

So how can you act, you ask? That question remains unanswered. Why? Because our society has developed so many extreme stereotypes for women that we no longer know how to respond. We don’t know what’s safe.

As a result, female candidates end up trying to traverse the icy trail of double standards, attempting to choose between one extreme over the other, floundering around in the middle, or just trying to be themselves.

Hillary Clinton has always been a strong leader who doesn’t take any crap. But it wasn’t her experience or vision that won over some voters, it was the fact that she cried on television. (”Oh good, she does have emotions, I had no idea”). Would voters ever need to see a male candidate cry to earn their support? Of course not. But apparently Clinton had acted too removed, too hard, too much like…a man for people’s taste.

But if Clinton had come out of the gate overflowing with emotion about women and her campaign, she would have been blasted for being a sappy female.

Meanwhile, Martha Coakley has repeatedly been called “icy” and is now criticized for not emphasizing the historic nature of her campaign. But should a female candidate dare express that her gender is indeed one of her many qualifications, the response I always hear is, “I won’t vote for a woman just because she’s a woman.”

It seems women just can’t win. And believe me, it’s not just women pointing this out (nor are women excluded from judging based on stereotypes). To POLITICO, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) recounted that despite her overwhelming win in Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton still faced sexism from voters there.

McGovern also brought up how a local paper concluded that Coakley’s new hair and makeup style were to blame for the race tightening:

“They wouldn’t write this about a man,” McGovern said. “I still think we have a long way to go to make this an equal playing field.”

James Carroll of The Daily Beast describes Massachusetts’ rich and long history of misogyny toward female candidates:

“The short of it is that the most liberal state in the nation … practices the politics of misogyny. When it comes to positions of real power, no women need apply. Martha Coakley was croaked by an electorate that could not get past her gender.”

Martha Coakley’s loss in the special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat leaves many of us angry that the “progressive” state of Massachusetts continues to squeeze out women. It also leaves us frightened about the future of women’s reproductive rights in the health care bill.

Without Coakley, preventing attacks on choice in health care reform looks bleak. And if Massachusetts serves as a thermometer for the way our country is viewing female candidates, we’re in big trouble.

It’s 2010, folks—when will the double standards stop?

This post was submitted by Jean Qiao, WCF Communications Fellow.

Today Massachusetts voters head to the polls to decide who will replace the legendary Senator Ted Kennedy.

Their votes could also ultimately decide the fate of health care reform. It seems a vote for Martha Coakley would take us one step closer to passing health care reform, whereas a vote for Scott Brown would do the opposite.

Brown has already made it public that he is adamantly against Obama’s healthcare bill, and without his support, health care reform will suffer another round of delays. At a time in which millions of Americans do not have health insurance, many those being women and children, a delay in the passage of this bill is simply not an option.

Electing Coakley is a necessary move, not only for the future of health care reform, but for increasing the representation of women in government. If elected, Coakley will join a mere 17 other women senators in the U.S. Congress and will make her the 39th woman to ever serve as a Senator.

In a country where women make up 51% of the population, having such a large minority of women serving in Congress is simply unacceptable—especially at a time when legislation directly affecting women’s health is being debated. As the Stupak and Nelson amendments demonstrated, the lack of female perspective is severely damaging to the legislation affecting millions of lives.

If the DCCC had a female Chair, do you think she would be urging Bart Stupak to run for re-election, as Chris Van Hollen is? Certainly not.

We need a senator who won’t throw women under the bus. We need a senator who will defend the civil rights of all Americans. We need a senator who will move our country forward, not throw it backward. We need Martha Coakley.

The outcome lies in the hands of Massachusetts voters, but their decisions today will impact the entire country for years.

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!