Women and politics

Here's my story in today's paper about the rural frontier and the problem it poses for women's participation in politics.

As always, there's never enough room in the paper to explore all the questions/issues in one mere story, but I should point out that Lisa Merrithew and I also discussed what's keeping women out of the political game.  Beyond the fact that politics looks just plain stupid to many sensible people -- men and women -- Lisa also talked about how potential female politicians are repelled by how their predecessors fared. In too many cases -- Kim Campbell and Sarah Palin, ie -- women find themselves vaulted into high positions because of optics, before they're surrounded by the experience, expertise they need to stay there. (I should say that I wouldn't put Kim Campbell and Sarah Palin in the same sentence that often.)

Sylvia Bashevkin has tackled this topic and others in her new book, reviewed in The Globe today. So if you're interested in the issue, there's lots out there to read and discuss.

Comments

[Pundits' Guide]

You got me interested, so I plotted the data for the last five general elections in a blogpost (it seems I can't link to it here, except through the URL option for my name, so you have to click on "Pundits' Guide" below to reach it).

Thanks for an interesting piece ... although Agnes MacPhail certainly never joined the Progressive Conservatives, but rather the Ginger Group under J.S. Woodsworth (the precursor to the CCF-NDP).