{"id":96,"date":"2019-04-19T03:27:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/?p=96"},"modified":"2020-08-12T20:25:53","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T20:25:53","slug":"needed-more-leaders-who-look-like-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/needed-more-leaders-who-look-like-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Needed: more leaders who look like me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
If I lived in Colorado, nearly half my state legislators would look like me. But because I live in South Carolina (and despite our state being 51.5 percent female) only about 16 percent of the lawmakers in the S.C. General Assembly are women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This ranks us a dismal 44th in the country in terms of female representation in state legislatures. Could it be worse, you ask? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Just look toward Washington, D.C., where for the past 26 years, the S.C. delegation to the U.S. Congress has been exclusively male. Nary a woman in the bunch since 1993.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Carolina voters have never sent a woman to the U.S. Senate, nor a woman of color to the U.S. Congress. In the Palmetto State\u2019s history, only five women have been elected to represent South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And how about the mayors, city and county commissioners, school board members, and business leaders in the state? They\u2019re mostly men, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time for a change, you say? I second that proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So does a new nonprofit organization called South Carolina Women in Leadership, which was launched April 8 in Columbia. SC WIL is a multi-partisan network of women whose mission is to inform, connect, and encourage women to seek leadership positions and run for public office. (Full disclosure: I am a member of SC WIL\u2019s communications committee.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SC WIL knows moving more women into leadership positions takes hard work. Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post tells how it happened in Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cKathleen Collins \u2018KC\u2019 Becker,\u201d Tumulty writes, \u201cwho got her start on the Boulder City Council, is the third woman in a row to serve as House speaker. \u2018We very diligently recruit women, and train women to run, and hire women as campaign managers,\u2019 [Becker] said in an interview in her offices just off the chamber. \u2018And so, all this is intentional. It didn\u2019t just happen that way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The message of the November 2018 elections, when scores of women were swept into office across the country, is unmistakable. Voters want women to play a bigger role in how this country is run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n