Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Women in politics
The first female governor of Vermont blogs about the different standards male and female politicians are judged by. Do you agree with her? Do you think your experience at an all-girls high school will help with this at all? What do we need to do to ensure that we have women who are interested in running for office?
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2 comments:
I agree with Ms. Kunin as well as disagree with what she has said. Women do not play as big a role in government as men do, this is evident through the example of the number of women in Congress as compared to the number of men. It is a shame that this is true. However it is not to say that it is because all women are afraid to speak out; this is just a misguided generalization. I believe that more than anything, society has placed the role of submissive and silent on women. This is the way that women have been raised in the majority of the country, this is why women are underrepresented in our government and in leadership positions of our society. It is not that women believe that they themselves are incapable of taking on such leadership, it is that society has told them they can’t. So the problem does not lie within women, it lies within society as a whole.
As for coming from ICA, I don’t think that timidity will be a problem for myself or for any of my peers for that matter. Growing up in this kind of community allows girls to speak up and to not be afraid of doing so. In this type of community, the girls are not distracted by any fear of appearing ‘catty’ to boys. There is no problem with having a voice, this community allows girls to grow up with their own opinion, which then becomes a mindset that gets carried on throughout the rest of their lives.
I do agree that female politicians are judged by different standards than men. For example, during the 2008 presidential elections people focused on what Palin was wearing to all of the events but no one cared about what Biden was wearing. Her experiences in the class room may be true for girls who attend coed schools but I believe that this generalization is far from the truth of girls who attend single-sex schools. Most girls who have attended all girl schools are not afraid to share their opinions or ask questions. This is becuase at an all girls' school, females are not subject to the influence of male classmates or see the preferential treatment that they receive. I think that women who are interested in politics should be encouraged to do so and the media should stop focusing on the way they look or the clothes they wear and more about the issues and their experience.
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