A new article in the Washington Post asks if we are creating our own glass ceilings when it comes to politics:
... a new report from the Brookings Institution suggests an unexpected reason for the relative paucity of women elsewhere in political office and the dearth of credible female presidential candidates: an ambition gap.
"Somewhat surprisingly," write political scientists Jennifer Lawless of Brown University and Richard Fox of Loyola Marymount, women's underrepresentation "is not because of discrimination against women candidates. In fact, women perform as well as men when they do run for office. In terms of fundraising and vote totals, the consensus among researchers is the complete absence of overt gender bias."
Rather, the "fundamental reason for women's underrepresentation is that they do not run for office. There is a substantial gender gap in political ambition; men tend to have it, and women don't."
I'm glad the writer, Ruth Marcus, spotlights the issue. My only problem with it is that she (and the study) didn't distinguish between having ambition and acting on it.
Ambition is defined as: An eager or strong desire to achieve something, such as fame or power. Perhaps they are correct that less women run for office because they aren't interested or don't have any ambition. I have to admit, I haven't run for any office since law school. However, I think that there are women out there who might have the ambition or desire, but may just be too darn tired to do anything about it. It's the old, women are still the main family/child care givers who may have the desire or interest to run for politics but are instead stuck being Cinderella, having to get all the chores done first. The article also notes that:
The women in the survey were far less likely to be married or have children than the men were, and those who did had their hands full: 60 percent of the women, compared with 4 percent of the men, said they were responsible for the majority of child care.
As Beloit College political scientist Georgia Duerst-Lahti put it, "Women may now think about running for office, but they probably think about it while they are making the bed." Chugging down the Mommy Track may leave little time for pursuing a third, often all-consuming career.
O.k. So now we've surveyed:
men, the majority of whom were married and only 4 percent have childcare responsibility, and
women who from what I can tell were for the most part single; and those who were married, 60% had the childcare responsiblity.
Now to me, that seems a bit like comparing apples to oranges. Single women who may be more transient and married women who have childcare responsibility v. married men with presumably stay at home wives.
I realize it's difficult to compare genders without making gross generalizations. I've run into the issue myself. Although I do prefer when they break the comparisons down to marital status/generations, etc. as that makes for better comparisons. Regardless, I think demographics are changing as breadwinner roles change and gen Y rebels against what has been the standard culture. Unfortunately, as more people remain single and transient in a global market, it may be of less interest to anyone to be involved in politics, especially on a local scale.
However, I will agree with the author in that there are women out there still culturally ingrained to not want to put themselves in the spotlight. Again, it's the passive Cinderella idea. But we need to ask ourselves and other women -- can you really break through a glass ceiling if you're wearing glass slippers?
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