First They Marched, Now More Than 13,000 Women Are Planning to Run for Office
By Claire Landsbaum at NY Magazine
http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/02/an-unprecedented-number-of-women-plan-to-run-for-office.html
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On Inauguration Weekend, an estimated 3.2 million people in hundreds of cities across the country took to the streets to protest the incoming president. More than 400,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., similar numbers turned out in New York and Los Angeles, and even in Houston, Phoenix, New Orleans, Santa Fe, and Reno, marchers numbered in the tens of thousands. It was, as organizers promised it would be, the most massive coordinated demonstration an incoming president has ever faced. But its real power will be measured not in crowd size but in the lasting impact it has on the political process. And one of the clearest results of the march — and of the election as a whole — is the wave of political participation among women at local, state, and national levels that’s emerging in its wake.
The day after Women’s Marches swept the country, 500 women gathered in an auditorium in Washington, D.C.’s Grand Hyatt Hotel. Each one had registered to complete EMILY’s List’s candidate training program, which would better equip them to run for public office. According to EMILY’s List, a week before the training was scheduled to take place it had already sold out, and 500 more women were on the waiting list. EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock said the organization holds these types of trainings often, but the “incredible energy” around this one is unique. “We spend a lot of time recruiting,” she said. “[Now] we’re seeing women calling us.”
Like-minded organizations have reported similar spikes in interest. VoteRunLead reported that in the past two months, more than 2,300 women have signed up to take its online course, and the organization’s January 7 seminar registered 1,200 women in less than 48 hours. Since Election Day, EMILY’s List has had more than 4,000 people reach out to say they’re interested in running — 1,660 since Inauguration Day. And according to a She Should Run spokesperson, in a normal month the organization sees “at best, and with significant effort, anywhere between a few dozen to a few hundred women” sign up. But in the three months since the election, co-founder and CEO Erin Loos Cutraro said 8,100 women have indicated their interest in running for office by registering for She Should Run’s online incubator program, which teaches them how. What’s more, Cutraro said things show no sign of slowing. “We had a staff meeting, and we were going over numbers,” Cutraro said. “Our community manager said, ‘But hold on — we got 100 more last night.’”
The United States’ pathetic record on women in politics (women only hold about 20 percent of all national-level seats, and the local numbers are just as bad) is due in large part to the fact that women just don’t run for office at the same rate as men. When they do run, they’re elected and reelected at about the same rate as their male counterparts — as EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock put it, “If we were in a country where women didn’t feel there were obstacles in the way, we’d be in a country where there were an equal number of women and men running for office.” But judging by the numbers, women are increasingly willing to face those obstacles. And that could mean the beginning of the end of gender disparity in American politics.
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