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While I do not blog on politics -- beyond the politics of farming, organic food and contaminated toys, anyway -- I thought it was very fitting for BlogHerDC's closing panel to feature women of the media talking about the upcoming elections. I was most struck by the remark by Carol Jenkins of the Women's Media Center that, "The real 'Hillary effect' is that fewer women now want to run for public office." In a truly historic election year, with an African-American nominee for president and a women nominee for vice president, how sad is it that rather than be inspired by the ground-breaking campaigns (of Hillary herself, too), women are even more turned off than ever by politics? Not of participating in politics; blogging women are more engaged than perhaps ever before, but of running for office themselves. Barring the election of McCain and a subsequent tragedy that would promote Palin to president, are we really moving backwards in electing women into the so-called Presidential pipeline?
Despite going to an all-girls high school, I have in the past been skeptical of women-only organizations that seemed to implicity perpetuate the notion that women are not equal. Since being involved in public policy, however, I have realized how important such organizations are to brdge the very real gap that discourages women from running from office. I support Women Under Forty Political Action Committee (WUFPAC), for example, which provides tangible support to young women to get them into office and gaining experience to move up to positions of greater influence. I can't imagine running for Congress with young children, even infants, as women like Debbie Wassermann Schulz and Cathy McMorris Rodgers have done, but I am so grateful that they have. Policies will never reflect the concerns of mothers and women if we aren't at the table drafting and debating them.
Now back to your regularly scheduled debates .... and my obsessing over green Halloween preparations.