Tomorrow when Nancy Pelosi takes the Speaker's chair, she won't just be beginning her tenure in what is likely to be one of the most ambitious and contentious party take-overs in recent memory, but she'll also be making history. And she knows it.
"When my colleagues elect me as speaker on Jan. 4, we will not just break through a glass ceiling, we will break through a marble ceiling.... In more than 200 years of history, there was an established pecking order - and I cut in line."
That's a damned long line to be waiting around in the back of, longer than in just about any other of the industrialized, and many developing, nations. There are more women in both Afghanistan's and Iraq's parliaments than in our Congress. In fact, we're number 80 when it comes to representation by women in our national legislature. Kind of puts into perspective the record 71 women taking office in the House this year (that's 16 percent of the body, for those keeping score).
Why the dismal numbers? Ellen Malcolm (EMILY'S List) has one answer: "The biggest obstacle women candidates face is not about gender, it’s about the lack of opportunity. Ninety-eight percent of incumbents who run for re-election are re-elected in most years. ... The bottom line is there are very few opportunities."
That's certainly part of the problem, but by no means the whole of it. Challengers are able to unseat incumbents. It's rare, but it happens. And it's much more likely to be a man making that challenge than a woman. Why? According to a new survey of professional women by a Brown University poli sci professor, it's all part of the second shift problem. How do you spend the kind of time necessary to run for office when you likely already have a profession and are trying to raise a family?
"All these women, even if they are extremely qualified, they are still so much involved in their family life they couldn’t even consider running for office," said Richard Fox, professor of political science at Union College in New York.
Fox did an extensive survey of women in professions that produce many lawmakers: education, business and the law. He worked on the study with Jennifer Lawless, an assistant political science professor at Brown University who ran for Congress this year, losing the Democratic primary in Rhode Island to incumbent Rep. James Langevin.
Among their conclusions:
-Women are less likely than men to be asked to run for office by party leaders and other officials.
-When women are asked to run, they are just as likely as men to do it.
-Women are more likely than men to think they are unqualified to serve, even when they have the same qualifications as male candidates.
"A man can wake up one morning, look in the mirror and say, ’By God, I would be the best state legislator that Nebraska has ever seen,’" said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. "Men don’t need to be asked."
Many of the women running for public office are older, waiting until they've raised their families or extablished themselves in their careers to run. Nancy Pelosi's political career reinforces this argument. She waited until her youngest daughter was in high school to run for Congress.
Pelosi's ascendance along with Hillary Clinton's credible potential presidential run signify some cracks in the marble ceiling. The big question is whether the rise of these women can usher in the kinds of policy changes that will make political life possible for more women; the kinds of policy changes that would make all sorts of careers possible for more women. A healthy boost to the minimum wage will be a great start.