Lack of women in
office unfair, embarrassing
EDITORIAL, Home News
Tribune Online, November 16, 2006
There was a day when New Jersey was a
trend-setter in promoting women to high elective office. Sadly, such is no
longer the case. In fact, one can fairly say that the Garden State's rough
treatment of female political candidates in recent decades has become something
of a national embarrassment, compared to what has happened in other corners of
the country.
It isn't that women don't seek access to the political process in New Jersey at
the same rate that men do. To the contrary. By every anecdotal and
statistical measurement, women pursue and are well-represented in elected office
at the municipal and county levels of New Jersey government. The barrier —
another partition in the glass ceiling, if you will — is erected later, when
they seek access to the Statehouse and beyond.
An examination of the numbers is discouraging.
In 1927, 15 percent of the state's legislators were women, which made New Jersey
something of an anomaly at the time. Today, that ratio has barely budged,
with women occupying a scant 19 out of 120 seats in the state Legislature, or 16
percent of the total.
Meanwhile, other states have sped up their election of women to state office. As
a result, depending on the year and the fluctuating numbers of female
representatives elsewhere in the nation, New Jersey now consistently ranks in
the bottom 10 states for its number of elected state officeholders who are
female — hardly a progressive or proud-to-own record.
The figures are far worse for Congress, where not even a single representative
or U.S. senator from New Jersey is a woman.
The reasons for the disparity at both the state and national levels of
government are varied, but chief among them would seem to be good old-fashioned
male cronyism, the proverbial old boys' club. Where and when women are
given the chance to run for office, the opportunity more often than not comes in
districts where they are long shots to win. Voters witnessed as much this
year, when Democrat Linda Stender was pitted against 7th District Republican
Michael Ferguson in a GOP stronghold, and in the 6th District, where Republican
Lee Ann Bellew was little more than a sacrificial lamb to nine-term Democrat
Frank Pallone.
Even when women do manage to win, it's often a battle for them to hold on to
their party's allegiance when a better-connected, better-financed male
challenger comes along — witness the Middlesex County Democrats' eagerness to
dump Assemblywoman Arlene Friscia a few years back when Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph
Vas set his eyes on her post.
Public policywise, a healthy proportion of women in elected office is helpful
for the gender as well. Even conservative women who have abhorred the
feminist label have worked while in office for the benefit of women: World
War II-era legislation that allowed women to serve in the military was
introduced by a female legislator; equal-pay-for-equal-work legislation was
drafted by women; Title IX, the athletic-parity law that has been life-changing
for young women, was shepherded through by a female legislator. And there
are studies that suggest a sizable collection of women can affect not only the
status of women but the tenor of political debate.
New Jersey, as enlightened and forward-looking as its major political parties
may claim to be, is nearly a century behind the times. It's time it caught
up for the good of its women and, indeed, for the good of the state.
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