Why it's important to elect women.

[Garrett78]

Many are dismissive of the idea that the 'identity' of our next POTUS nominee or that of nominees for other offices is important. The whole gender-blind or color-blind approach is clearly compelling to a large number of people. The assumption is that advocating for our next POTUS nominee to be a woman or person of color, or both, is equivalent to saying, "Our nominee should be a woman just because." But that assumption is false. What follows are excerpts from articles on why that assumption is false, why the dismissiveness is wrong-headed. The articles focus on electing women, but some of the arguments made could also apply to electing persons of color. The Republican Party remains viable because of racism and sexism, so a reduction in both is paramount. Not to mention reducing oppression is simply the right thing to do, and benefits everyone. Without further ado, the aforementioned excerpts:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-cohen-why-women-should-elect-women-20160406-story.html#

The global scholarship leaves no doubt: Women in political office make it a priority to advance rights, equality and opportunity for women and girls, in a way and to a degree that men in power overwhelmingly do not.

A large body of research has been devoted to answering a fundamental question: Do women substantively represent women more effectively than men do? In hundreds of studies examining large data sets of roll call votes, bill sponsorship, laws enacted and other measures the answer is clear. "Across time, office, and political parties," political scientist Beth Reingold writes in a comprehensive review, "women, more often than men, take the lead on women's issues, no matter how such issues are defined."

Such findings don't mean that all female officeholders seek to advance women's rights, or that women govern only from the standpoint of gender. But the research does speak strongly to the fact that women and men in power have different priorities.

And then there's the danger that if women aren't at the table, they might be on the menu. In late 2009, the all-male Senate Democratic leadership team met privately to decide what would be included in the final Affordable Care Act. They eliminated a women's healthcare amendment that had passed overwhelmingly in committee, and that included coverage for such things as contraceptives and mammograms. The amendment's sponsor, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), had to demand its reinstatement just as the caucus was about to vote on the final bill.

Certainly part of the explanation is that women voters care about many issues, not just "women's issues." Still, their aversion to explicitly advocating for themselves, I suspect, stems from fear of being labeled selfish. From childhood, women imbibe the notion that selfishness, like ambition, make them unlikable and untrustworthy. This may be part of how we get to a moment in which white working-class men's overwhelming support for Trump or Sanders is called a "movement," while women's support for Clinton is dismissed as touchy-feely "identity politics."

The U. S. has made tremendous advances on equal rights over the last 40 years, and yet we have a ways to go. Women are paid less than men in almost every job and at every level. Ours is the only advanced economy that doesn't guarantee paid leave for new mothers. On broad measures of gender equality, the United States ranks an unimpressive 28th in the world.

To achieve equal opportunity and full participation for women and girls in all areas of American life demands leadership, dedication and political will — and especially the will to expend political capital — at the top.

All the evidence tells us that our odds of making progress on gender equality will be much higher if the president is a woman.

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/27/12266378/electing-women-congress-hillary-clinton

Changing the conversation can have an effect on the laws that Congress eventually passes: One recent study of Congress since 2009 found that the average female legislator had 2.31 of her bills enacted, compared with men, who turned 1.57 bills into law.

All told, Congress allocated $20.8 trillion in federal outlays (excluding defense and military spending) from 1984 to 2004. Women, it turns out, did a better job at getting their share of that money. On average, female legislators sent 9 percent more funds back to their districts than their male colleagues. Districts represented by women received an additional $49 million annually on average compared to their male-represented counterparts.

Sarah Anzia, the author of this study, argues that this might reflect something particular about the type of women who run for Congress. Multiple studies have found that women underestimate their qualifications for office compared to men. When you look at a comparable group of lawyers, business leaders, and others likely to run for office, the men are significantly more likely to say that they’d make a good politician.

"One of the common jokes in this field is that every day, there are a million men who wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say 'I’d be a great congressman,'" says Heidi Hartmann, an economist who runs the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. "And there aren’t that many women who do that."

As such, Anzia hypothesizes that the women who do assess their qualifications positively are those who are actually overqualified for the job.

https://www.npr.org/2016/04/11/473792646/is-it-ok-to-vote-for-clinton-because-she-s-a-woman-an-8-year-old-weighs-in

Gender may not be the only reason many women are voting for Hillary Clinton, but it plays into many people's votes, Traister said. And given that politics has been so heavily dominated by men (and, specifically, white men), another feminist told NPR earlier this year that it too often unfairly puts other groups' issues in the "specialty issue" category.

"Inherently we believe that white people's issues are the mainstream issues or men's issues are the mainstream issues," said Renee Bracey Sherman, a feminist and reproductive rights activist (who says she has donated to both Sanders and Clinton). "Everything else is a 'sideline issue.'"

The question at issue here may well be whether "the issues" and identity can really be separated from each other. For some, like Traister, seeing yourself represented in office can itself be an issue. And in Bracey Sherman's mind, some women's and minority groups' issues haven't gotten as much attention as they might with a more diverse government.

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. My brother in law was over tonight.

He’s not a politics junkie, but does manage to stay pretty well informed.

We were talking about the high number of women candidates for office this fall, and he said something very interesting.

He said the best thing about these candidates is that they are running as women...not women trying to be men.

We introduced him to Beto through YouTube. He was impressed.

[Garrett78]

3. The fact of the matter is we've never come close to properly addressing racism and sexism.

Our history still haunts us. The UN Working Group on Persons of African Descent visited the US a few years ago and made it abundantly clear in their report that we are failing miserably to combat systemic racism. The same goes for sexism.

Electing more women and more persons of color has substantial value...for *all* of us, and the future of our species.

[BigmanPigman]

2. Good article.