No Female Senators or Representatives from Congress are on Stimulus Bill Conference Committee
You have got to be kidding me:
Senate Democratic leadership has announced who will be serving on the conference committee to iron out differences in the House and Senate versions of the stimulus bill.
- Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
- Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
- Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii
- Finance Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa
- Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Thad Cochran, R-Miss.
Both Finance and Appropriations were heavily involved in the creation of the Senate version, with each committee holding markups on their portions.
And for the House:
- Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey, D-Wis.
- Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.
- Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
- Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.
- Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Dave Camp, R-Mich.
This is what it means to not have a critical mass, to have less than 25% of your constituency represented. Only 17% of all congressional members are female. And so, with five from the Senate (5% of the Senate) and 5 from the House (just over 1%), what chance do women get to be selected for these critical reconciliation meetings?
The evidence is out there about the economic impact on women of the recession and women’s organizations have been consulted on this for much of the the way, since Obama became president. This exclusion of all female congressional members from this final process is absolutely perplexing to say the least.
If you’re in the know, at least explain to me whether this matters. I don’t see how it doesn’t, but I’ll listen.
And before you get all, “gawd so typical of a woman!” on me – I’m not the only one who noticed. Read comment #24, from a businessman:
although two Republican women senators are chiefly responsible for the passing of the senate version, there are no women on this committee!
No excuse. Just no excuse. Well – okay – go ahead. Tell me why.
Cross-posted at my blog, Writes Like She Talks.
24 Responses to “No Female Senators or Representatives from Congress are on Stimulus Bill Conference Committee”
Ok.
If we assume a random distribution of both senators and representatives, it's ~4% that you get no women on either. Sure, that seems low, but it also means that for every 25 such groups we'll get one false positive.
Second, if these committees were chosen by position and not by gender, the odds were 0% because none of the positions listed are currently held by a woman.
Third, Congress probably has priorities slightly higher than making sure all committees are balanced with respect to gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. I doubt it occurred to them that there was anything wrong with putting the Appropriations Committee chairman and ranking member to work on the stimulus bill.
Fourth, this can't possibly be one of the more important issues facing women. This is just nitpicking.
Tenek – I couldn't disagree with you more.
First – I don't get your first point – sorry.
Second, that is precisely why no women are on the conf. comm. and that has to change. My understanding is that under Pelosi, there has been change, but obviously not yet that's hit these relevant committees for this bill.
Third, you are again kidding me re: thinking that a bicameral legislature populated with people who are democratically elected being representative of the demographics of the country it governs isn't a high priority. Have you noticed what's going on in Israel lately? And sub-third: to say something didn't “occur” to someone is no defense.
Fourth, I'm not sure what basis you have for thinking that “this can't possibly be one of the more important issues facing women. This is just nitpicking.” Go for it – especially if you are a woman – what do you think are the more important issues than making sure that democratically elected women are 100% excluded from finalizing an $800 BILLION recovery package that is expected to impact every American?
this is just about as reasonable to me as saying black people should have voted for obama because he's black, and women voted for clinton because she's a woman… finding discrimination in this, i feel, is sexist in and of itself. because you're saying that men innately cannot do what's best for everyone.
plus, like tenek said, probablility wise, it's bound to happen here and there. unless you have proof it was done on purpose, you just sound like a conspiracy theorist.
plus, that whole pre-emptive “before you get all…” is just plain offensive.
Jill – well, if you didn't disagree with me I suppose you wouldn't have written this in the first place.
My first point was that if you randomly selected committee members and completely ignored gender, due to the smaller fraction of women available you have a non-trivial chance of picking ten men anyways. If you select 10-member committees 100 times, we expect about 4 of them will have no women by chance. If you're trying to determine whether there's a systematic bias against women in Congress you have to look at all the committees, not just this one.
Second, if you think women are underrepresented in Congress *now*, consider that there were zero female senators in 1977. There's a substantial delay between (increasing) equality at the polls and equal representation. Seniority is a huge factor in determining committee assignments and there are a number of people in Congress who have been there for decades. If you like the extreme examples, Daniel Inouye has been a senator since before Kirsten Gillibrand was born. We expect this effect to fade over time as the Senators- and Representatives-for-life retire and women have a chance to pick up seats.
You can also consider that 40% of the committee is presumably reserved for ranking Republican members, who have an even worse gender ratio.
Third, again, Congressional demographics don't match the country as a whole. You write a bill with the Congress you've got. Do you think the stimulus would be substantially improved by including a woman on the committee? Do you think that women have no effect on the bill as it is? At this point the goal is to come up with a bill that 2 of Specter, Collins and Snowe will support. That sounds like substantial influence to me, regardless of who is and is not “on” the committee. And maybe it did occur to them that someone would get annoyed if there weren't any women on the committee, but they ignored it because they already know that someone's going to complain no matter what they do.
Things I consider more important than having women on a congressional committee:
-FOCA
-Domestic violence
-Silvio “Women are for babies” Berlusconi
-Genital mutilation
-Add your own!
Actually. I believe your 'before you get all, “gawd so typical of a woman!” on me' is itself inherently sexist.
The thought that did occur to me was “gawd, so typically liberal!”.
dmf – “Before you get all” is offensive? I will take note.
Of course you are entitled to your interpretation of matters related to the fact that more than 50% of the voting population is female and only 17% of the members of Congress are of the same gender. But should you have any interest in listening to other perspectives, here's what I would tell you:
The historical discrimination that contributes to the inability of women to get placed as chairs of the committees w/jurisdiction over the stimulus bill is what has to be overcome, just as the historical discrimination that contributes to the inability of non-whites to get elected in proportional numbers to the U.S. Congress, or a state legislature or a local city council.
A perfect example of this is here in Ohio. The city of Euclid was ordered by the Supreme Court to change its system of electing council members because it was inherently biased against non-whites. The system was changed for the last election and now there is at least one person of color on the city council, for the first time ever – despite the fact that the city has been more than 50% non-white for decades (you can read more here).
“It was done on purpose” really twists what I've written. This isn't about anything currently being “done” on purpose. This has to do with redressing systemic bias and discrimination.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
the fact that you can't see why pre-emptively stating your expectation of a deluge of sexism is, in and of itself, prejudiced…
well there's just no point to continue.
Tenek – first, I appreciate you taking the care and time to respond – that's worth a lot.
But, no surprise I'm sure, I disagree with your points – not the veracity per se, but that they have relevance to the problem.
1. For me, this point only amplifies the problem with having so few women and serves as an impetus to work on the pipeline and keep working on raising awareness. I do not fault what you're describing per se but again, find that it suggests that we have serious systemic bias against women where none is merited – in fact, because it is, or could be, as you say, random. That, to me, makes it more eggregious, not less.
2. The argument about “if you think you have it bad now…” always fails with me. It's not you or how you present it. For me, however, it just is no excuse – none. So what that things are better now? That is great. But they still aren't good or good enough. Better? Yes. But that's, again, no excuse to not continue to point out what is problematic. I've had people say the same thing to me about how much “better” Jews are treated now compared to WWII Germany, whenever I blog about anti-semitism. Naw. Just is a really bad argument – frankly, it's not an argument at all.
And totally agree with you on the point about what's reserved for the minority members and that party's paucity of women. You have no idea how irate I am about S.C. have not a single woman in its state senate – did you know that? And yet they're working on pushing through the most restrictive abortion laws etc. It's really, really shameful.
3. Again – even accepting as true all that you write, it is no excuse to let it be. Collins and Snowe are excellent examples of how important what one does and what one believes, not just great examples of women legislators and leaders. They embody that leadership difference that comes from women and how they negotiate and prioritize that is being discussed so much re: ethics and the performances on Wall St and in the banks lately. The Senate, the state of Maine and the Obama admin should be thankful those two senators are women. If they were men, Obama could easily be sunk – because of the style Collins and Snowe deploy, relative to their male counterparts. Specter has LONG been someone with a similar bent and that is why he has the reputation that he does.
4. One at a time here:
-FOCA: it is a well-accepted fact that FOCA is not on the table for this legislative session and many think it won't come up at all in the Obama admin
-Domestic violence – Biden is, as you probably know, all over this one but additionally, much of it happens at the state level
-Silvio “Women are for babies” Berlusconi – Huh? How is he more important? You are teasing me, yes?
-Genital mutilation – again, the Senate Foreign Relations Comm. just added to one of its committees' responsibilities Global Women's Issues and Barbara Boxer will be chairing that subc. You can read more about it here.
-Add your own! Cute.
But in all seriousness, getting women into positions of political leadership is truly one of the top priorities of many women. Plus – we multitask – we can have all these things be top priorities at the same time.
Like I said, so noted – thanks.
did my comment just get censored…?
dmf:
“[P]re-emptively stating your expectation of a deluge of sexism is” what people who are used to being attacked do – it's not prejudiced to react that way – it's defensive.
As you may recall, much of the conversation during the 2008 election revolved around some people trying to tell other people what they should and shouldn't feel is racist or sexist. If you think that what I wrote is sexist, you know – that's what you think. I'm not trying to disabuse of feeling that way – I'm only telling you that I will note that that's what you thought.
If having someone agree with you is your threshold for whether or not you're going to continue to engage, well – I can't change that either but I will speculate that you don't engage in debate all that often – you prefer to give your view and leave it at that. Obviously, since I keep coming back to respond, I view disagreement differently.
you also seem to view the textbook definition of “prejudice” differently.
and considering you're wrong on your other “assumptions”, you should probably take a step back and reassess. as a scientist, i don't waste my time arguing whether or not the world is flat. that doesn't mean i don't engage in fruitful scientific discussion. it means i recognize that certain things are already settled. and i don't waste me time.
Ok – I'll bite – “considering you're wrong on your other “assumptions”" – which “assumptions” would those be?
By the way, dmf, I saw on your Disqus profile that you're a PhD at UMD's engineering school. Do you know that they have a specific Women's Community? Do you think that that entity is “prejudiced”? Here's the link: http://eng.umd.edu/facstaff/women-community.html
I'm not sure how you can suggest that randomness = systematic bias. I think we may be talking past each other on a couple of these. To address the historical issues:
-I'm not saying that you should be grateful there are any women in Congress at all. Rather I'm saying that the historical lack of women has a residual effect. Once you get elected you can stay there for a long time. Over the next few decades you can expect the male:female ratio to drop as the Byrds, Inouyes and Kennedys leave office.
I would also say that women aren't necessarily pro-choice. She who can get elected in SC might not be any more liberal than her male counterparts.
3 – Snowe and Collins are, well, two. They're the ones willing to play ball on this particular package. Specter is there too. Voinovich has also been brought up, although he's sitting with the Republicans for now. They get power for providing two cloture votes, and they lose it because a blue-state Republican can't act like Orrin Hatch and survive. Lisa Murkowski and Kay Hutchison, you may have noticed, don't seem interested in bucking the party line.
Put it another way – how would you feel if John Kerry were replaced by Sarah Palin?
4 – I wasn't really going after priorities of the 111th Congress so much as 'things that would be more important for women's rights in general'. Maybe there's a certain amount of resignation involved – your lives would be dramatically improved if you, say, dismantled the Catholic church, but goodluckwiththat. Putting a woman in office is actually possible, so we'll do that instead. I hope that is more of a means to an end, though – politicians are more valuable for what they do than what they are.
Tenek – this is very interesting to me, because it again reinforces the limits of having this level of discussion in a one-dimensional place like cyberspace. That is serious, not being cheeky at all. So let me work on this:
1. I didn't mean to imply that randomness is systemic at all or equal to. No – what I mean is that, given a choice to put order to something, the fact that the order we put to it does no better than randomness makes the point all the more poignant – does that help? This might be one of those things that's hard for me to explain in words but I can see it – and I know others who see it this way too (ThinkProgress just posted about it here: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/11/no-women-st…)
2. About the historical piece – are you attributing the ratio change to organic occurance? Because, see, I don't think that that is in fact what would happen if left to “nature” so to speak. I think that Gillibrand's rise and in fact Palin's are both due to specific programs intended to help identify and cultivate and promote women into leadership. Without such programs, I think we'd fall even further behind.
As a slight tangent, do you know when the Dept. of Labor's Women's Bureau was created? 1920 – the same year women got the vote. Men aren't stupid.
3. Totally agree w/you re: women aren't all pro-choice – don't I know it being in Ohio. But my point truly and sincerely is about the representation, not the position taken on any issue. My reason for wanting women in SC is so that the women of SC could have a say in what will impact them. If they want those restrictions, great but again, using Ohio as an example, our GOP was WRETCHED in recruiting and they have only one women state senator out of 21 seats that they hold! Whereas the Dems are far more flush and in large part it's groups like Progressive Majority and others working it.
4. On Snowe and Collins, Specter, Voinovich, Murkowski and Hutchison: I grew up in New England and spent many years in CT and ME, and I think Snowe and Collins really fit the bill for their state – I think it's a great tribute to them that they are negotiating for the best interests of their state and their voters appreciate it – but that state is somewhat – relative to Ohio, where I know live, homogeneous. So, when you get to Voinovich, you know what? The guy is just tired – want to see what a swing state US Senator looks like after several years? That's him – Metzenbaum was another example. This state is FUNKY – I mean, really really swingy and it is HARD to hold a constituency, esp. the Rep. right now in a state like Ohio where that party is so incredibly fractured (i.e., they cannot agree on what direction to move, they cannot agree on what's essential).
Obviously that's all just my opinion based on living here 20 years and following the politics closely for about four.
Now – see – Ledbetter showed us what women CAN do in critical mass numbers: all four of the GOP female senators voted with Specter and pushed Ledbetter past 60. That is huge and that's what can be done and that's what many women's groups hope for. On the stimulus, I can't speak as much – but I understand what you are saying I think re: they have not been negotiators on this and are sticking with the GOP.
Kerry replaced by Palin isn't really enough of a possibility to twist my head around – what exactly are you asking? Palin would barely make it in politics in New England these days.
If you're wondering whether I would just blindly want to swap out men for women, no – I have never advocated that and I never would. Quality comes first – I didn't support Clinton or Obama – I wanted Biden, Dodd and Richardson, in that order, and wrote about that pretty regularly during 08.
5. In general, I agree with your conclusion about politicians being more valuable for what they do than what they are – but again, Roland Burris is an example of where both coincided but also that there was little chance that the senate valued the interest in having at least one African-American in its ranks. This same issue is coming up now with Justice Ginsburg being ill – did you read Marie Cocco's column from Monday? She addresses it perfectly:
http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com/2009/02/10/a-…
I think this is a really important conversation to have, to have written down for others to see. But it is very difficult to express and explain sometimes, esp. if you aren't one of the historically discriminated against.
“My reason for wanting women in SC is so that the women of SC could have a say in what will impact them.”
Is it silly of me to not understand what that means? Does each racial. ethnic, religious, group or sexual orientation need to have representatives of their own kind, to have their voice heard? And does it have to be proportionate to their share of voter-population?
If we're assuming that we're putting up candidates who are fair and just, unbiased and unprejudiced, why can't any citizen effectively represent all segments?
SteveNW – that is an ideal, no doubt, what you say here: “If we're assuming that we're putting up candidates who are fair and just, unbiased and unprejudiced, why can't any citizen effectively represent all segments?”
But for those of us who follow this kind of thing closely (ie which individuals are culled and promoted by local and state parties) we know it simply is not that simple, straightforward or representative.
There's a reason why many countries have quotas for the number of women that must be elected or be heads of corporations. Likewise, you know, the Iraqi constitution requires that there be a quota.
I have never said I wanted a quota. What I have said is that I want to fill the pipelines with the most qualified women possible so that we reach a critical mass point where, yes, we will no longer be having this discussion.
But we're not there.
1- I think the order that was put to it was, in fact, significantly better than randomness – you get the people who are probably the most qualified to sit on the committee, rather than ending up with Lieberman and Burris muddling through it. If your only metric is female representation then no, it's not very good, but my example would do much better on black and Independent representation. This would be much less of an issue if women were 45-55% of Congress – but they're not. As such the committee demographics are just a symptom of the actual problem. Depending on how you look at it – women aren't represented enough vs. women can't get elected enough – it could take decades to resolve.
If you're going to provide gender balance on everything, then this could actually create more problems than it solves. Think about what kind of workload one of the Republican women would be looking at if one of them has to be on every committee. This would have two consequences: one, women looking at a run for office know going in that they're looking at doing much, much more work than the men, and two, that if the don't do as well with the extra work, it leads to “See? Women aren't any good at it.” While I'm being a tad facetious here, equal committee representation does translate to unequal workloads, and the more things you have to worry about the less attention you can give each. ('Course, it's not very equal to begin with – Murray's on six and Shaheen on two. Damned if I know how they're doled out.)
I would be a little cautious about describing reasons that Palin got anywhere – I'm running with a void on her prior to summer 08 and one can consider any number of cynical reasons she made the GOP ticket, such as an attempt to peel off women voters who consider her equivalent to Hillary. While you may have a point about the rise of women in politics being partially caused by actually encouraging them to do so, I expect the numbers to go up in the future by considering two barriers women face when trying to get elected:
-Sexism
-Incumbency
The first one is both considerably weaker than it has been, and it's still under attack. The second is much harder to undermine (or is much slower to respond). Most seats in Congress are not up for grabs, and she who wishes to get one must either a) wait for one to open up (slow) or b) knock off an incumbent (hard). As time goes on, women will have more opportunities to pick up open seats, and incumbency will protect the ones who are already there, but this won't happen overnight.
3 – If you want the demographics of Congress to reflect those of the country then the current system is wholly inadequate for it. Oddly enough, gender is probably the one characteristic which might work, if you, say, halved the number of congressional districts and made each elect one man and one woman. (Same for the Senate, only easier.) Everything else is a failure waiting to happen, though. “Sorry, we're already over budget for Jews, but you can run if you sign on with the Pentecostals” anyone? Asking the people to do that themselves won't work either – you don't get to vote for “1:1 gender ratio”, you get a choice of two candidates for each level and there's a 50% minimum chance that they're the same gender anyways.
What I'm really trying to say here is that I think everyone should have a fair shot at running for public office, and if that's the case I don't really care what the split works out to.
4- OK, quality comes first. So what happens if the 10 best qualified people for the committee were Reid, Inouye, Grassley, Baucus, Cochran, Obey, Rangel, Waxman, Lewis, and Camp?
If that's the case, then nobody did anything wrong and the decision was exactly correct. If that's not the case, then either they recognized that or they didn't.
If they didn't realize these were not the best choices, then they have a problem determining good committee members, which isn't really a women's issue, it's a generic politicians-are-imperfect thing. If they did realize that these were not the best choices, then they have decision-making problems. That again doesn't seem to be a specifically gender-related issue. Maybe this time it was in fact a woman who lost out, but next time it might be the opposite. I think it's a bit much to say that they deliberately left anyone out because they lacked a Y chromosome.
–note: I don't really like the following section but I went to the trouble of writing it and figured that someone else might find value in it. Or they might burn my house down for it. Either way.
5 – Maybe some of the issues related to Burris and the “gee, we can't kick out the only black guy” are more a matter of the disconnect between being inclusive and appearing inclusive. Part of the latter seems to be paying a lot of attention to balancing things like race, gender… uh…. race… religions that ask you to visibly identify yourself as an adherent… basically, the stuff that's not supposed to matter. Susan Collins was elected to represent the people of Maine, not the women of America. Which is just as well, because she gets an impossible vote as soon as you bring up abortion (or pick-an-issue). Which will it be, Susan? Will you vote pro-life, betray your gender (historically discriminated against), and support your faith, or will you vote pro-choice, betray your church (Catholic, also historically discriminated against), and support your fellow women? One of these will inevitably give, so you end up with a woman who has a say in women's issues and whose vote has nothing to do with her gender, or the same problem with religion.
Well – my multitasking hours are coming to a close and I definitely can't process all that you've provided – I really will only butcher it and sound incoherent so I will get back to it more fully in the morning. Seriously – I'm one of those people who should never blog after 5pm – my brain just isn't functioning at much of a capacity.
But let me say a couple of things:
I am sincerely accepting of women who don't agree with anything I believe being elected. I'd rather someone who does believe what I believe beat that person in a race and I won't vote for that person because they're a woman. I just won't. That's in part why Palin was never even a remote option for me.
But I say this because I wouldn't consider Susan Collins' choices as having to do with betrayal. That's part of what I dislike so much about some of the catfighting among some former Hillary supporters with other women. Stephanie Tubbs Jones was my congresswoman and I loved how she stood up for her choice of Clinton just as I liked Ted Kennedy's standing up for Obama. But Stephanie really withstood enormous pressure.
We are adults – she is an adult. There is something to be said about sticking to principle. And I do feel that way.
My allegiance is to the effort of making women feel that they can run, that they should run, that they can lead and will lead. The societal biases that work against women to feel confident in these manners are absolutely everywhere – I don't agree that they are nearly nonexistent at all. At my blog alone there are numerous examples as recent as this week (calling Ted Strickland's support for Lee Fisher v. EMILY's List support for Jennifer Brunner a “classic” duel) and at the inauguration when the Plain Dealer describes Brunner talking about her dress but Rep. Tim Ryan talking about the auspiciousness of the occasion (he was more in the limelight as a possible US Senate primary contender for Voinovich's open seat back then).
Anyway – I'm afraid I'm going to start to make NO sense – if I've been making any.
Other women may be about some of what you write – I am about just getting more women in there, period – in there running, in there losing, in their winning, leading, whatever. Not “just because they are women” – but because we're more than half the population and should never have been excluded in the first place.
I'm not going to slap too many words together here, since I doubt it's posible to draw a picture that will come into focus for everyone, but I agree fullheartedly with Jill, and I say this based on common sense alone. The absence of representation when it comes to 51% of the population in this country is really hard to explain in any acceptable way. We can make excuses and rationalizations until the cows come home, but the fact remains, there should be at least one woman on a committee that is going to be tweaking a bill that's going to be effecting every woman in this country. Did I mention that 51% yet?
Ok – so I'm going to try with my fresh morning brain here but Tenek, I have to agree with JSpencer agreeing with me – either you're going to get this or you aren't. Women are still behind in getting into leadership roles in many scenarios because of historic discrimination and the false belief by some that sexism doesn't exist anymore. It exists, it's everywhere, it's in many systems and it requires positive effort and pointing out to align to where we have equal opportunity in all sense of that word, including in the practices, behaviors and beliefs of individuals who currently remain biased about women.
So – your last comment::
On your #1 – you know – I'll take the odds of what the workload would be like if we had actual gender equality in representation (at least proportionate). Likewise, the fact that something is a symptom versus being the root cause really is irrelevant – they both need to be addressed (and in fact that's what I continue to point out re: the root causes and the fact that the bias exists at the root, not only superficially). Yes, it will take decades – it IS taking decades. We're trying to accelerate that.
On your #2 (which I know doesn't have a 2 on it but I think that's what you wanted) re: Palin – again, you are seeking to explain, when the fact is, the system is stacked against women. Term limits have not been effective for a variety of reasons, but for one, historically, men start at politics at a much younger age, build up incumbency and then job hop through the different offices. This is one thing that the programs like White House Project are hitting head on by recruiting and encouraging women at young ages. Now, if you look at New Hampshire's state legislature, you find something WAY different – there – the legislature is viewed as likely to have PTA women in it as career politicians and now, their state senate has more than a majority of women, from both parties. You can read more about it here. And I know you really do not mean it this way, but to even SAY that as there are more open seats, women will pick them up can be interpreted as sexist as well – why shouldn't fight an incumbent and win if she is in fact qualified and prepared and what voters want, just like any man might do? You know?
Palin didn't succeed because her ideas were so out of whack with a significant proportion of voters. She embraced sexism herself so I don't see it as something that kept her back at all.
#3 You said at the end there that everyone should have a fair shot at running – this is a great ideal, but it's not something that really exists. What is a fair shot? Who has money? Who has time? Who has which responsibilities? What is in a voter's mind about men, women and politics? There is a LOT that needs to change – over the decades you point to – in order for that fair shot to be a reality. It is not currently a reality – but we're working at it. The effort women must make is far greater than men. Look at Gillibrand's NY 20th seat race for starters. There were three or four women in the final batch of possibilities, all with credentials including political and local. Who do they pick? A handsome, 38 year old only been living there for three years never been in NY politics guy with…GOBS of money.
How many women have gobs of money at 38? I don't know – but there are many more men who do and again – this is part of the entire sphere – it's not JUST one thing. So we have to be working on ALL levels to get to that “fair shot.”
#4 I am smiling – Tenek – (is that a real name – can you give a name? I really do write like I talk and it would be so much easier! even a fake real name) – there is, no way, on Earth, that those ten men were the most qualified ten men of the 535 member Congress. No way. No how. No….fill in the blank. Again – you are just reaching here to justify a system rather than say – YOU ARE RIGHT. Women make up 51% or more of the population – there should be at least that in the Congress.
Let me put it another way – WHY should there be 83% men in the Congress?? Why? All this chat spent trying to defend the fact there are so few women in our federal legislature, and no time simply saying, you are right – it is totally and unacceptably out of balance.
Sigh. I just don't get why it's so hard for anyone – male or female – to just say, it's wrong and it shouldn't be that way and we need to keep working to redress the situation. Why is it so hard to say that?
Unless someone is prejudiced, biased and/or afraid.
(I addressed your #5 in my prior comment to you)
Good morning Jill,
(hopefully the display name has updated now.)
Maybe one of the relevant points here is the existence of things which a) are not inherently biased against women but b) are accidentally biased against women. Here's a thought experiment: Suppose we tell Congress “Thanks, but we don't like you any more.”, fire them all and ban them from running ever again. Then we hold new elections and fill the assorted 535 slots with new people. Do you expect that women will be more than 17% of the new class? Well, I do, because this deletes the incumbency factor, which currently helps keep a lot of seats occupied by men, without being intrinsically anti-woman (see Dole vs. Hagan – one benefits, the other loses). If you want to accelerate the process of replacing established pols, you eventually have to start kicking qualified, competent people out of office just to get women in, and frankly I find that more offensive than a 5:1 gender ratio.
The reason I'm differentiating between problem and symptom is that you can remove the symptom and have it come back because you didn't fix the problem, whereas fixing the problem will also take care of the symptom. If Congress was half women then the odds of 10 people all being men – or all being women – are 0.1%.
As for the reason saying women will go up in number as seats open up isn't sexist, incumbency protects the.. incumbents, who are, thanks to historical sexism, disproportionately men. If you're an intelligent, hard-working, charismatic woman running for office as a Democrat in an R+15 district against a 10-term incumbent, chances are you're going to get flattened as badly as any man would because the deck is so badly stacked against you from the start. 2008 was a banner year for the Democrats and they got a few dozen pickups. Sometimes your sacrificial lamb gets lucky *cough*obama*cough* and the incumbent has a public disaster. Your other option is to take out someone from your own party in a primary, and you're still fighting an uphill battle. Two uphill battles actually, because not only do you have to win the primary but you also have to win the general without being the incumbent. So you might say that Specter is blocking Democratic women because he's a moderate incumbent, and he's blocking Republican women because he's an incumbent period and the PA GOP is probably terrified that nobody else would be able to beat the Dem candidate in 2010. When the seat is open you have a (more) level playing field.
I think your point re:NY-20 says more about money than sexism. You can spend as much of your own money as you like but donations from others are a) limited and b) not necessarily going to show up at all.
If the committee members chosen weren't the best 10, then as I mentioned above maybe they're not very good at picking the best 10, and sure, I suppose that out of the 535c10 possibilities one of them was probably better, but perfection is not something that appears in politics very often and maybe it's better to just pick 10 adequate people. (Yes, I realize this means you can add a woman without making any relevant difference to the quality.) Or maybe they're not choosing individuals at all, and Harry basically said “Me, and the top two on Finance and Appropriations” all five of whom happen to be men.
The trivial answer to your “Why 83% men” question is, because that's who the voters picked. The more relevant answer, at least for me, is that I don't consider a certain ratio of men to women (or any other attributes) to be intrinsically good; what I value is a fair process which elects the politicians the electorate actually wants. If there is some part of it which discriminates against women, by all means change it. If there's some part of it that sucks for other reasons, change that too. If it is fair, then I don't care what the actual numbers are, and I don't take an imbalance to be evidence of sexism, as there exists a disconnect between what you're measuring (men:women in X) and what you care about (sexism in X)
Also, I'm not afraid, I hope I'm not prejudiced, and as a human being I'm most definitely biased, not that I can tell you what my biases are.
Ryan, with all due respect, because I know you are really trying and being sincere here, you are missing the underlying issues that are at the base of why a number of your assertions, in my opinion obviously, simply don't flesh out. For example:
1. You wrote, “Do you expect that women will be more than 17% of the new class? Well, I do, because this deletes the incumbency factor, which currently helps keep a lot of seats occupied by men, without being intrinsically anti-woman (see Dole vs. Hagan – one benefits, the other loses). If you want to accelerate the process of replacing established pols, you eventually have to start kicking qualified, competent people out of office just to get women in, and frankly I find that more offensive than a 5:1 gender ratio.
This does not pass muster because the system by which individuals enter electoral politics continues to favor men, as a general proposition – certainly not everywhere (take my NH example from above). Unless and until we straighten out that system, which would include breaking up old boys clubs (which don't even have all old boys in them) and powerful political party structures, including getting to money as well as databases, the entrée into politics remains a system that still favors men.
Now – if OTHER systems were to come further simultaneously (for example, women having the same earning power as men, being paid the same, having the same access to the ways in which men accumulate wealth etc.), then, again – we'd be talking movement.
EMILY's List is actually one of the best examples of recognizing the role money plays, but the White House Project is an excellent example of demonstrating how vital it is to ASK women to run. There is a huge body of literature about the difference between a man choosing/deciding to run and a woman (which I won't repeat here but if you just google why do women have to be asked to run for office, it will all come up).
2. You wrote, “If you're an intelligent, hard-working, charismatic woman running for office as a Democrat in an R+15 district against a 10-term incumbent, chances are you're going to get flattened as badly as any man would because the deck is so badly stacked against you from the start. 2008 was a banner year for the Democrats and they got a few dozen pickups.”
But if you drill down to the local races, and Ohio is a good example of this, where groups like Progressive Majority were involved, we saw great gains for women that they backed in +R districts. Why? Because PM does an incredible job of recruiting, supporting, advising and encouraging – and several of their recruits here in Ohio were women. It – turning the tide so that more women are in office and win elections – is about all these things.
Additionally, consider the appointment situations – now, there was huge pressure on Paterson to select a woman – I agree – wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a world where that wasn't the case? But the fact is (and again, read Marie Cocco's column from Monday about SCOTUS for more on this) that without keeping that in mind, the percentage would have dropped – and, again, this is like the Roland Burris situation. I am not saying it is optimal or even necessarily the best or correct. But given the inequities that persist, this is how it is.
#3 Finally, you wrote, “what I value is a fair process which elects the politicians the electorate actually wants. If there is some part of it which discriminates against women, by all means change it. If there's some part of it that sucks for other reasons, change that too. If it is fair, then I don't care what the actual numbers are, and I don't take an imbalance to be evidence of sexism, as there exists a disconnect between what you're measuring (men:women in X) and what you care about (sexism in X)”
The process is not fair, for the reasons I've suggested and more that I haven't, I'm sure. We're working to change it – Pelosi is working to change it, as are many other groups. And so it goes.
Thanks for the back and forth.