“The Matriarchy Up North”: Why Women Should Run
Renee Loth wrote a fantastic editorial in the Boston Globe today about New Hampshire’s woman-led legislative leadership. NH is the first women-majority state legislature, and it’s shaping the public policy emerging from the state legislature. For example, the Granite State has finally approved state-funded kindergarten. Loth writes,
“First, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to raise the state’s gasoline tax by 15 cents over three years. Then the House approved a bill allowing the use of medical marijuana, by a vote of 234-138. Next, it voted to repeal the state’s capital punishment statute. The House wrapped up March with a vote to legalize same-sex marriage, and the Senate followed suit yesterday.”
“It’s as if there was a bloodless coup of the state’s political establishment in November, and women were the avatars of change.”
Why?
“I do think gender has affected the way we discuss issues,” says Exeter Democrat Margaret Hassan, the Senate’s president pro tem. “Women tend to see problems in a much less segmented fashion, and that has allowed us to connect the dots in different ways.”
There’s been a lot written about why women don’t run. Often, political scientists use network theory to show that women don’t run for office as often as men because women don’t benefit from the kind of social and professional networks that encourage (and fund) electoral quests. From my brief view of NH state politics, women do now have a strong place in the local political network, and they’re using it to gain office and positions of leadership once in the Legislature. It’s a snowball: once women are in the pipeline for local and state offices, the networks just grow automatically.
My esteemed blogger colleague and friend Jill Zimon is a perfect example of a woman who’s running for the right reasons, with the right resume behind her. It seems to me she, too, is well-networked in her Ohio community and among the state’s party movers and shakers at large. I’ve seen her network grow just in the past two years. She has invested in growing the network online and offline, a smart move that I hope will pay off come voting day.
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About Me
Morra Aarons-Mele utilizes social media strategies to help employers, employees and communities connect. She also consults with leading organizations on how women can use the internet for professional and personal development. In her spare time, Morra enjoys blogging about women and politics. Read her full bio >>
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