Analysis: Covering the Pa. Capitol while female
Today, there are 40 women in the 203-member House. There are seven women in the 50-member Senate. Some of them serve in leadership positions. But when big policy decisions are made, they’re rarely sitting around the negotiating table. In my 12 years covering state budgets, I can’t recall a single time a female legislator has been in the room when the final deals were being cut. This year was no exception.
As bleak as that sounds, it’s better than it was when I started working at the Capitol back in 2005. That year, there were only 34 women serving in the entire Legislature, according to the Pennsylvania Center for Women & Politics at Chatham University, which has traced the ranks of female legislators back to the 1970s.
Walking into the Capitol that first time was like stumbling onto the set of “Mad Men” or, better yet, onto a page out of a deliciously satiric Tom Wolfe novel. Men in monogrammed cuff links and custom-made suits purposfully striding down the halls trailed by women, often young, often in subordinate positions. These were cigar-smoking men. You could cut the testosterone with a knife.
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2017/10/27/Angela-Couloumbis-Covering-Pennsylvania-Capitol-while-female/stories/201710270167
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One step forward, two steps back for the past 30 years.
