I read an article this weekend titled, “New Political Group Aims to Push Women to Seek Elected Offices.” A brief summary is that there is a new organization from Ventura County, California called The Ventura County Women’s Political Council who are trying to recruit and train women for public office. In the article it gives statistics that pertain to both the issue of women serving in Ventura County but also national statistics of women in office.
The statistics that this article gave were eye opening. At the state level, women make up 28 percent of the Legislature, while at the national level 90 serve in the Senate and House of Representatives, holding 16.6 percent of 535 elected offices, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.That is just a ridiculous amount of under representation; you would think that because women make up a little more than half of the population that they would be represented accordingly in our government. But I suppose it goes back to the debate as to whether or not someone has to belong to a certain group to represent them accordingly. There are certain politicians who say they are pro women but it’s debatable if they count as representation as they aren’t a woman.
Something that struck me as odd about this council is that their core teachings are issues that women usually go to school for or have some sort of background knowledge in; reproductive health, the environment, social, educational, and economic justice. Before this semester I had not heard much about these political schools so it's interesting to read about one opening up and the stats that come with it.
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