When I went to the link, there was a great video about an on-line chat room phenomenon. The video explained that by someone suggesting that her friend would be a great Presidential candidate, there was a growing ground swell for Linda McCabe as a candidate for President of the United States. It looked like a real TV-station news spot and if the premise wasn’t so preposterous, one would find it quite credible. When the video is over it takes you to a page where you can prank your friends by filling in their names and email addresses and sending the same email.
I sent it off to many friends and received comments, such as “great laugh” and “so funny.”
When I first started looking at the video, I did not catch on as quickly as my daughter and husband did when I showed it to them. They started laughing right away. For me, my reaction was more about curiosity. So I certainly question my ego since my first thoughts were “I don’t think I am presidential material.” and “Who would want such a responsibility?” instead of immediately chuckling and hearing screams in my head announcing, “Joke, joke.” Within seconds I, too, started quickly moving to smiling and laughing.
But for a short time after viewing the video and sending this fun past-time to friends, I thought again about which women would put themselves through the grueling experience of being a female political candidate in our country. Look, for instance, what Hillary went through. I remember hearing a presentation a few years back by an organization that recruits females for becoming candidates for political office. They were stating numerous reasons that it was difficult to find women willing to subject themselves to the scrutiny, time, energy, and the onslaught of barbs and indignities perpetrated by the opposition. What would be the pros for doing this? Celebrity? Validation? Passion for our country, state, or town? Advancing power for women? Getting women’s issues moved forward? The joy of serving?
That then made me wonder about the statistics for United States female candidates. And, I found some 2008 statistics, as follows:
Women hold 88, or 16.4% of the 535 seats in the 110th US Congress. 16 or 16.0% serve in the Senate, and 72, or 16.6% of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. The number of women in statewide elective executive posts is 75, while the proportion of state legislatures is at 23.7 percent. In addition, three women serve as Delegates to the House from Guam, the Virgin Islands, and Washington, DC. 75 women hold statewide to executive offices across the country; women hold 23.8% of the 315 available positions. To date, women have been elected statewide to executive offices in 49 of the 50 states. In Maine, the governor is the only executive elected statewide, and a woman has never served as governor there. 1,748 or 23.7% of the 7,382 state legislators in the United States are women. Women currently hold 425, or 21.6% of the 1,971 state senate seats and 1,323, or 24.5% of the 5,411 state house or assembly seats. Since 1971, the number of women serving in state legislatures has more than quintupled.
Certainly progress is being made. And, still women hold in all cases less than 25% of these positions.
I care about these statistics and I know there are many women who feel as I do. Yet, in large part, my sense as I talk to women all the time at networking and other events, is that much of it is lip-service or outright disinterest. That is true regarding the interest in the number of women in power positions in corporate America as well.
I most often feel like a fish out of water when talking to women about women’s issues in our country. It has been suggested and is likely right-on that younger women aren’t as hung-up on this subject as older women.
I have never been a fan of the TV show Sex in the City. In fact, I purposely and fixedly avoided it finding the interests and attitudes of the show positively opposite to mine. I know I am very much in the minority. Women loved it! My loved ones and dear friends loved it! So, when a close friend of mine, who, in fact, is very different in many ways from me, asked me to go to the movie with her, despite my original repulsion at the thought, decided for two reasons to go. One, she is my friend and wanted me to go with her, and two, experimental – how would I feel about it? Would I change my mind?
I went last night with my daughter and friend, and if I were them, I probably would have slapped me. I sat there in disgust, making unending comments, rallying in my condescension. I couldn’t help it. One of the first lines was about what women in New York want – the 2 L’s; love and labels. Ick! That is so not me! The sharing of sex talk, the salivating over clothes and fashion, the self-centerness of the characters – all of that made me want to shout aloud to the audience to come to their senses. My friend, of course, thought I was totally ridiculous.
So I wonder about the causes of these two general attitudes of women in the U.S.: One, not too much concern about gaining more power through politics and having more money and power through more and higher corporate positions of influence, and two, the Sex in the City obsessions.
I crave information from younger women, women who wear 4 inch heels, women who starve themselves and spend fortunes on botox and plastic surgery, women who think drinking wine and moaning about the rotten men in their lives, women who would rent designer purses in order to be seen with them, women who prefer a fluffy fun-time out instead of a fun time together working to further the cause of women, women’s rights, and women’s power, women who prefer to moan about their poor marriages or being single and not being able to find a decent man, women who think it is not important to work for the future of women in our country because “nothing will ever change anyway.”
Straighten me out! Show me the error of my ways! Help me understand the current psyche and guide me into the mainstream of my sisters of this land!
Yes, I can hear that I sound somewhat like someone on a soap box - nonetheless, I am definitely and positively not running for President of the United States!
