I have wandered into a political panel. This panel is about how activists can make a difference in politics. The panelists work for the whitehouse website, various activist groups, and political blogs.
Why don't get involved in politics? Men don't have that problem. We only make up 17% of Congress. Women have to be asked three times to run for office. How can women be more empowered to get involved in politics? — this is the topic of the panel. How fantastic!!
Apt. 11d 
I’ve been thinking for the last few days over whether women are just not crazy enough to run for office. A scary woman from my past whose kids were bullies when I was growing up has suddenly made the national news by being scary on a national hot button issue.
http://www.outinjersey.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1778:aids-gods-punishment-lgbts-says-nj-bandb-owner
While it is reassuring to see that a person who had always scared us is now confirmed to be wacko, one fact that I wasn’t aware of was that she “at least twice she ran against the very popular State Senator Diane Allen in the Republican primary and lost.” Allen is by no means a RINO, but she ran against her from right. How sure do you have to be in your beliefs that you think that you could get into office, impose your rules, and things would get better?
Maybe most women (but not this one) see both side of the issue too often to think they can affect meaningful change.
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“I’ve been thinking for the last few days over whether women are just not crazy enough to run for office…”
There is that. You have to have a lot of self-confidence (like, way more than is realistic) to believe that you should be able to run other adult people’s lives better than they can.
Here’s one of my favorite t-shirts:
http://www.hollywoodloser.com/shirts/5feetFury.html
It’s Kathy Shaidle’s quote, “You’re not smart enough to tell me how to live.”
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Well, I went to our local Republican club meeting awhile ago and was told “I think you’re at the wrong meeting. the Republican women’s club is meeting down the hall.” Yes they were. They were discussing a bake sale fundraiser. The actual meeting was where candidates were being solicited for local elections. Did I mention that I have a PhD in political science and lots of public policy experience and would really like to run for city council? The meeting down the hall chose some guy that works at a car dealership to run for city council. His wife is really pretty and a helluva baker apparently. Somehow I don’t think of not enough women’s candidates should be blamed entirely on the women. Me, I blame the patriarchy.
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Did I mention that I have a PhD in political science and lots of public policy experience and would really like to run for city council?
That doesn’t work. You need to swear loudly and directly insult someone’s gonads. It’s about flipping a switch to get them to move you from the “woman” box.
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Louisa,
Wanting to run for city council is pretty ambitious if you haven’t paid your dues yet. I take it that you probably were planning to pay your dues, but that’s a multi-year process. Remember also the Republican proclivity for running the person (OK, guy) who lost last time.
There’s a Phyllis Schlafly bio (Donald Critchlow’s Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman’s Crusade) that is supposed to be very good. I’ve never gotten around to reading it, but it’s apparently a very interesting portrait of how powerful a person can become outside of elective office just by working really hard at it.
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You probably do need to show you are willing to pay your dues, but you might need to make it clear you are paying dues, not volunteering as clerical help for its own sake. You need to threaten somebody at least once or twice.
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What should I threaten them with? (I do have pretty bad PMS and a pretty cranky, so it wouldn’t take much to set me off . . )
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Implicit threats of castration.
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