“You can’t be it if you don’t see it”
By Gwen Frost
“A woman’s place is in the House, and the Senate,” joked one T-shirt sitting in the audience.
Young Democrats of WWU hosted “Women in Politics” on February 21, the first speaking event within the series “The Politics of Diversity.” Spring quarter will continue the series with “Race in Politics” and “LGBTQ+ in Politics.”
Committee Member of Young Democrats Katie Sando said the club wanted to promote conversation, and “get people to start thinking about politics in the ways that they currently aren’t.”
“I think it’s really great that we can get people talking about it, and just being exposed to it,” said Sando. “Politics is a conversation.”
First speaker was Dr. Shirin Deylami, professor of Political Science and an affiliated faculty member with the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, the Queer Studies Program, and the Islamic Studies Program.
“American politics is a gendered game,” said Deylami. “When we think about the ideal candidate, we often turn to masculinist ideals.”
Overall, Women make up 19.9 percent of Congress, but women who do run actually tend to win at about the same rates as men, said Deylami. The misrepresentation isn’t because women are losing elections; it’s because they aren’t running in the first place. But why?
Deylami outlined four reasons:
- Women tend not to want jobs surrounding power and conflict, due do the employment of domination tactics that women react negatively to as a practice.
- Women perceive the electoral environment as biased against women. If there is an opportunity for a job but you know that the hirers are biased against you, you’re a lot less likely to try to get it.
- Women just don’t get asked as much to run, either. By either men or women.
- Women don’t see themselves as qualified, or as qualified as men. In one study, men and women were asked to list 20 characteristics of a qualified candidate.
The candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have also turned women off of running, said Deylami. After the 2008 elections, media reinforced an impossible double standard of womanhood that both women failed to embody.
Deylami asked us to encourage women to be leaders.
“Show students political figures that are women,” said Deylami. “You can’t be it if you can’t see it.”
Pinky Vargas is currently a Bellingham City Council Member and a candidate for the 42nd District State Senate seat (running against incumbent Doug Ericksen) in the 2018 midterm elections.
She discussed a media response to her accord in a City Council Meeting, where the Northwest Citizen said she had “temper tantrum.”
Vargas said male colleagues were often very expressive as well, “but none of them had ever had this happen to them.”
“Men can wear the same two suits for a year,” said Vargas. “If I wore the same suit, or didn’t comb my hair, you can bet that nobody would care what I said.”
Attendee and previous Western student Maggie Norton felt inspired and surprised after the event.
”Not going to school, and not being a part of politics, you kind of forget that there are a lot of good people out there, and not just terrible people that are trying to destroy our lives,” Norton said.
“Having women at the table will change our lives,” said Vargas. “It will change the conversation.”
One audience member asked, “what is the biggest obstacle moving forward toward this goal of incorporating women into politics?”
The biggest obstacle that Deylami saw is that we’re “focusing on Donald Trump.”
“We can’t just respond, we have to envision something that’s different,” said Deylami.
“The outrage machine is really easy, but we have to find solutions.”