Los Angeles Suddenly Has a Dearth of Top Women
Dear friends of women in science,
Occasionally I take a look at non-science events about women, often because Sonia Pressman Fuentes alerts me to them as she did on August 4, when The New York Times ran an article called "Women Scarce in the Top Posts of Los Angeles" by Adam Nagourney. That hits close to home for me, living in Claremont just outside of LA. We had a strong woman running for mayor, Wendy Gruel, but she was defeated by Eric Garcetti. The NYT said that only one of the fifteen City Council members is now a woman. We didn't have such a very male-centric City Council in the recent past. Often it had five or so women, so I was shocked. But then I asked myself, why would a woman be interested in politics today? Politics seems to be unlimited rant opportunities, lies, cheating of both financial and sexual types, and lack of constructive movement to help people with their problems and daily lives. Women can do better at helping people by choosing medicine, teaching, non-profits, arts, or the law.
Nagourney hints at this possibility of women's repugnance for politics when he quoted email from Debbie Walsh of Rutgers, "The issue isn't that voters won't vote for women - it's that we don't have enough women running. It's a recruitment issue." But it's not just a low turnout of possible candidates. Gruel encountered anti-mother sentiment in her campaign. She said, "There are still stereotypes of ‘How can women be a good elected officeholder and a good parent?' We found that in focus groups: ‘How will you be able to do both?' Those same questions aren't asked of a male."
I'm curious, do you supporters of STEM women find it encouraging or discouraging that the same issues we face are also confronting women in politics today? And do you see this resistance to electing women where you are as well as in LA?
cheers,
Laura
Discouraging. Look around--how may women leaders are in your workplace? how many women have been hired/recruited to your workplace--filling new positions, managerial ones? This "recruitment issue" characterizes most professions actually, and perhaps the highly competitive ones like STEM & politics may suffer more. Sometimes the analysis is that easy: we don't have any at the top because we don't promote any along the length of their careers. It's like saying, "Gee, i wish there were more chocolate cookies for this institution," when the institution only baked 5. We are all responsible for baking bigger batches, and doing the work needed to give the same ingredients to women in their early careers. I think a lot of this is inadvertent neglect providing the ingredients.
Laura--
I think it's scary when both politics and STEM recruitment face the same prejudices against women, myself. I feel like society is closing ranks against us and I may have to leave the US to protect my daughters if it keeps going in the directions I see right now.
SJ
Hi Laura,
I think women will gravitate to where they can really have a positive effect, as you suggest. I wouldn't go into politics today. It's hostile, and often the rhetoric suggests that no one matters but rich donors. Ugh!
BXG
