Putting women in government

On Take Our Daughters to Work Day, there was at least one place where a daughter could not go visit her mother -- the Oval Office. But at a speech on the lawn of the Fels Center for Government last Thursday, White House Project president Marie Wilson told the audience of about 100 that her group is trying to "hurry history" and help elect a female president. "We figure these little girls want to be president -- we're going to make it possible," she said. Wilson, who is also the head of the Ms. Foundation for Women, noted that women historically have made up less than two percent of Congress, despite comprising 52 percent of the U.S. population. And although women have made significant strides in local and state governmental leadership, the higher-ranking elected jobs still often elude them. "They don't think we're tough enough, they don't think we can do foreign policy, they're unsure of our financial skills," Wilson said. "Those are the issues that are still hanging people up -- even though they say that they'd like to vote for a woman, when they're given a choice, they will take a man in executive leadership." To get to the root of this problem, Wilson co-founded the White House Project in 1998 to get more women into elected office, including the presidency. In the group's few years of existence, one of its main focuses has been to publicize the names of potential women candidates through straw polls published in Parade magazine. Voters "do not have any idea what women are out there," Wilson said. "They never worry if they don't know the men, but they worry if they don't know the women." Operating from the belief that the media and culture shapes American beliefs of what can happen, the White House Project has also focused its attention on media coverage of women running for executive leadership. "It's really informally called 'hair, hem lines, and husbands,'" Wilson said. "What happens, even to the best women, is they get genderized. And suddenly it's not about your issues or your agenda -- it's about other things." Leading political strategist Celinda Lake -- who also addressed the crowd -- said that it was still necessary to "invite" women to run for office, rather than them choosing to do so on their own free will. "The men said, 'Oh, everybody's been telling me to run ever since I was in high school,'" Lake said, citing a study she did on potential male and female candidates. "But the women said, 'No one has ever said that I should run.'" Certain issues are also associated strongly with women office-holders, such as education and health care. But the economy is also a looming concern, both in terms of its overall health and of women candidates' perceived understanding of it. "Voters tend not to vote for women candidates in bad [economic] times," Lake said. "They already think it's a risk voting for a woman and so they tend to be more willing to take those risks in good times than in bad times." Both speakers also emphasized the importance of having a strong "pipeline" of women in all types of elected offices in order to be properly groomed for the presidency. But for the big vote, they don't need to convince College sophomore Lincoln Ellis to vote their way. "I'd probably vote for a woman [president]," he said. "I think it would be good for the country to see a little bit of change."