Ladies' choice

By SCOTT SAYARE

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This year's presidential race has been heralded as an emblem of social progress, a coup for gender equality. But buried under the national headlines is the pervasive under-representation of women in American politics, especially at the state level, and a decades-long stagnation in the number of women seeking public office.

Last week, the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (MWPC) held a press conference to support the candidates they'd endorsed in the local elections, and speak about the importance of women's representation in the State House. "We have hovered too long in Massachusetts around 25 percent," said Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Melrose, who is up for re-election and was endorsed by the MWPC.

Other women running for legislative seats with the MWPC's endorsement expressed energetic optimism. "Women are on the move!" said Susan Pope, a candidate for state representative.

But the numbers tell a somewhat different story. US Rep. Niki Tsongas was also endorsed by the MWPC. "Fundamentally, women cannot win if we do not run," she said. Elected in 2007, Tsongas is Massachusetts' first female in Congress since 1983, and only the fourth in Massachusetts' history. She is one of only 87 women in a 535-member congress, though this number represents a marked increase since the 1970s, when as few as 11 women held seats.

As Clark noted, women have hovered at the 25-percent mark in the Massachusetts Legislature for the past 20 years. This year, 60 women are running for legislative seats. In 1992, 73 women ran.

The national average for women in state legislatures is 23.7 percent, a number that, as in Massachusetts, has changed little in recent decades. In South Carolina, there are only 15 women in the Legislature of 170.

MWPC Executive Director Sheila Capone-Wulsin pointed to the sexism in the presidential race. "Women face certain challenges when they run for office. They face a higher level of scrutiny," she said. "When is it going to be about their ideas and not about their pantsuits?"

Tsongas was less critical. "I think it's inevitable. As you have these historic candidacies, there's going to be discussion about how it's treated and how it's not," she said, "but that's just part of the process."

Despite these disparate views, the women, Democrats and Republicans alike, agreed that John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as running mate was intended at least in part to appeal to women voters. They just couldn't decide whether or not that's a good thing.

Capone-Wulsin called Palin's selection pandering. "[It] shows that women are definitely important to the political arena," she said. "I think that Sen. McCain may find out that he misjudged what women will do, and that we won't vote for a woman just because she's a woman."

While they hope to see a dramatic rise in female politicians, the women at the MWPC event stressed that voters should make their choices based on a candidate's qualifications and ideas, and not gender.

Jennifer Benson, one of the MWPC-endorsed candidates, said, "You absolutely want to elect the person who's going to do the best job. Period." But, she added, echoing Tsongas, "The more women run, the more women will win. That's the bottom line."