NOW Convention: F is for Progressive Woman

BOSTON/Back Bay - Five women active in local, state and national election campaigns appeared for a political roundtable on Saturday, where they urged their audience to run for office and take back the “F-word” in 2010. That’s F for Feminist, and there were dozens of them seated in Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel during a conference hosted by the National Organization for Women.

“We’ve heard Palin’s brand of feminism,” said Adrienne Kimmel, the panel’s moderator and political director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, “and felt the anti-incumbent sentiment” that she said should prompt everyone in the room to become politically active this term.

Former leader of the Maine state senate Beth Edmonds offers her comments to the panelists during the Q&A session.

Priti Rao, executive director of the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus, expressed similar concern over how Conservative women have recently appropriated the notion of feminine politics. She warned that right-leaning parties are very smart at PR and NOW members should not waste time carving out an opposing stance for the upcoming elections.

“We were afraid to use the F-word and now they’re taking it from us,” she said. “We need to be vigilant about what Feminism means and wear it as a badge of honor.”

Other panelists for the talk, titled “Run, Vote, Win: Advancing Women’s Rights Through Electoral Politics”, were Massachusetts state senator Sonia Chang-Diaz, candidate for Pennsylvania’s 16th district, Lois Herr and Emerge Massachusetts executive director Judy Neufeld. They discussed the dismal number of races that include women this year, as well as only twenty-six percent representation in the Massachusetts legislature and only seventeen percent in the US Congress.

“The statistics you hear should anger you,” said Neufeld. She is working on filling the pipeline to have more women poised to run when future opportunities present themselves. She would like to see 30 or even 50 percent of the legislature be made up of women. That, she said, is enough to reach a tipping point and affect change.

When it was her turn to talk, Herr couldn’t stay in her panelist’s seat, but rather took the podium and turned on her stumping voice. This is her third run against incumbent Republican Joe Pitts, who she claims is doing all he can to chip away at a woman’s right to choose when to be pregnant and equal rights in the workplace. She volunteered her motive to make another attempt at the seat: “Because I’m angry!” she shouted, adding, “if I had any fault from earlier campaigns, it’s that I was too nice!”

However Chang-Diaz was quick to point out it’s not easy to become a politician. She is Massachusetts’ first Latina elected to a state office, and at 30, also one of the youngest members of the Senate. She said she is constantly battling the “layering on” of prejudices toward her age, gender and race. To win her campaign, she made some compromises, such as wearing her long, curly hair in a tight bun and opting for higher necklines.

But the biggest obstacle for Chang-Diaz, one she is candid about, was funding a campaign on her meager personal savings. Financing, she said, is the hurdle standing between most women of color and the chance to enter a race. Her first, failed campaign attempt depleted her funds, but she landed a job that allowed her to sock away 50 percent of her earnings, so she ran again and won. “Without children and with a living wage, it was possible for me to do this, “ she said.

In response, Rao said support to enable women to run for office is part of her organization’s mission. Rao lamented how few Massachusetts’s representatives are women, but not for lack of campaigning. She said women win seats with great frequency, but few choose to run for office.

“Women often don’t think they’re qualified. They need to be asked to run,” Rao said, adding most women have many of the tools needed to enter a political race—supportive friends and family and a reason to run. What they need are tools and resources to fundraise and broadcast their message.
Rao asked for a show of hands to demonstrate how many women had thought about running for office. Dozens of hands went in the air. “You can do it,” Rao said, “or go to a woman you think would be great and tell her to run! Consider yourself asked,” she continued. “now go out there and do it. We’ll help.”