Why Women Often Don't Run For Political Offices

Politics involves dealing with issues, negotiating and brokering deals with allies and enemies, public speaking, hard decision making, endless socializing and staying popular with your constituency.

Sadly, the current political landscape is like a war zone with winners and losers and people at logger heads preparing for the next battle, while little gets done. It is definitely not a career for the faint hearted.

With all the conflicts and hard decisions being made, and the unique skills required to execute them successfully, one would think politics and public office would be women’s domains, considering that generally women serve, mediate conflicts, are nurturing and good at conflict resolution. However, looking at the landscape, it is obviously not.

Have you ever wondered why? Or thought to yourself, why don’t more women run for political offices? This wouldn’t be too farfetched considering that generally speaking women possess the skills to make good politicians. Well, if you have, you are not alone.

At a recent Meet and Greet event honoring Congresswoman Jenkins of Kansas, I posed the question, “Why do you think women don't run for office?” to the men in attendance to get their unique perspectives. Their answers are below…

Politics is one of the last heavily male dominated environments. It is entrenched in tradition and is sometimes passed from one generation to another. It’s pretty much a good old boy network.

It takes time. Even though we have “equal rights”, women still take care of running the home and running for office takes time, effort and money. It takes time away from “home running” duties, and there's also societal pressure on women to fulfill "womanly" roles. Another reason is that there’s often a lot traveling involved, such as going back and forth to DC from a politician’s home state, which may not be conducive to women with young children. Candidates who have young families have the pressure of their maternal instinct also weighing heavily on them, and they may not want to leave their children behind to go on the campaign trail or to come to DC to serve.

Some females may not want to be involved in the mudslinging and bipartisanship politics involves.

Women are getting there. Republican women such as Nimrata "Nikki" Randhawa Haley, the governor elect of South Carolina, Kristi Lynn Arnold Noem, the U.S. Representative-elect for South Dakota's At-large congressional district of South Dakota and Susana Martinez who is the District Attorney for the 3rd judicial district and Republican Governor-elect of New Mexico, which is a diverse state with many diverse issues, all recently shook up the Republican party. Martinez will be the first female governor of New Mexico as well as the first Latina governor in the US. There's now more diversity in the GOP circles, so they have a fresh perspective. Also, Senator Lisa Murkowski and her father, former Governor Frank Murkowski in a father to daughter transfer took out Joe Miller, which is rare. So women will get there, if they hang in there.

There's room for women to grow in politics. Some women may feel they should be at home; however, there are many Mr. Moms out there. Men are raising kids and taking care of the home, so that shouldn't be a deterrent anymore, as long as there's family stability.

The Republican women rose up because women like Hutchison, Murkowski, and Palin have paved the way for them. So they can see themselves in those roles. In the past, many women didn’t run for office because they couldn’t compartmentalize their views in terms of being conservative and outspoken. However, they can now be outspoken on issues even if they have conservative values. For example, Kelly Ayotte, the US Senator-elect for New Hampshire who is a member of the Republican Party is a conservative moderate. She shook up the establishment. Now there are two young women in the senate as she will become the youngest female U.S. Senator, displacing Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.The North East is becoming dominated by female progressives, but the East and West Coasts have more female candidates than Middle America.

It's difficult for some women because there's a social stereotype of women's roles. Women are making strides, but it's still the case of many women being stay at home mothers and you can't go up a career ladder effectively like that, let alone have a political career.

There's already gender pay discrepancy and to run for office you need money, so that is a problem.

To run for office and win, you must command authority and be a somewhat dominating person, and women are not perceived positively when they display such behaviors. The public has a double standard and won't elect women as much as they do men. Women aren't looked at positively when they display persuasive, self confidence and dominating behaviors like Hilary Clinton did.

It’s a two edged sword. You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't. If you don't come out to run for office saying, “I will win,” no one will vote for you, because they'll think you don't believe in yourself and you don’t have the confidence to even say you will win, so why should they have confidence in you and vote for you? However, if you do come out saying, “I will win,” as a female, they'll say you’re arrogant, over confident and have a sense of entitlement.

In comparison to some countries, women have a better chance in the US, though it is the last of the Western Countries where women are still behind, even if they're rich and powerful. There are stereotypes and barricades which aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Women can be put in office using artificial quota systems, but it will create a negative sentiment and may backfire. A cultural shift is best, but takes a long time. The voting public of that generation and stereotypes have to die off for some things to change. For my generation, we are in our twenties and we are more open to women in powerful roles than previous generations are.

I'm from the Deep South where the thinking is a woman in her twenties should be barefoot and pregnant. So, even though things are changing, in our lifetime, I don't think a woman will be president of the US.

I think in our lifetime a woman will be president. I would tell any woman to go for it. When you strive to achieve extraordinary positions like the presidency, even if you fail, you learn a lot, so just go for it.

There you have it. These are some of the reasons why men believe women don't run for office. My advice to any woman considering running for office is, YOU CAN DO IT! Quoting Les Brown, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars.”

If you try and you don’t win, you have still won. Compare that to not trying out at all. For example, Jennifer L. Lawless, Director of American University’s Women & Politics Institute, ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Democratic Primary in Rhode Island’s second congressional district in 2006. She did not win the primary and has not run in another election, but she co-wrote a book titled, It Still Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office, and she is now helping other women run for office. So, it is good to note that though the initial goal of winning may not be fulfilled, some good will ultimately come out of it.

I would like to use this opportunity to appeal to people to encourage and assist capable women in their spheres of influence to take up leadership roles. Sometimes, all it takes is the right person to nudge a capable woman in the right direction towards leadership.

Till next time, this is where Sociable Susan signs off.