Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Friday, July 07, 2017

More women are needed in politics, but does politics change women or do women change politics?

Gail Collins has a column ("Women Move, World Improves") in the New York Times about the massive increase in women interested in running for political office post-Trump.  From the article:
... Women’s involvement in politics seems to be skyrocketing — they’re doing everything from petitioning Congress to planning their own campaigns. Groups that help prepare women to run for office are reporting an unprecedented number of website visits, training-school sign-ups and meeting attendance.

Everything is going to get better! There’ll be more bipartisanship in Congress, more rationality in foreign affairs and better government on the state and local levels. Corruption will drop, voter satisfaction will soar and never again will the governor of a major state spend a holiday sunbathing on a public beach that’s closed to the rest of the public due to a budget crisis. All right, we’re only totally positive about the last one.

Still, more gender equality in politics is a great goal. While there have been some really terrible, truly awful women elected to public office over the years, as a group women seem to be better at working with others. For instance, female senators have regular bipartisan dinners in Washington. There was a time when this would not have been a big deal, but in the current climate it’s akin to Nixon in China.
But I think we need to be careful in thinking that this is the magic bullet cure for political intransigence.  Although to be fair, Ms. Collins acknowledges this.

There are plenty of bat s*** crazy women in politics.  Some don't get elected (e.g., Christine O'Donnell running for Senate in Delaware in 2010).  Plenty do (Sarah Palin, Helen Chenoweth). 

And plenty are in politics but not elected such as Ann Coulter, Scottie Nell Hughes, Laura Ingraham, Tomi Lehren, Dana Loesch, etc.  And nothing in their makeup seems to be promoting "working with others," especially others who don't espouse the same, lockstep views.

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1 Comments:

At 7:47 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are unbelievably misogynistic and condescending. The sad thing is you can't even understand why your sorry excuse for an article would get this comment. Lockstep, indeed.

 

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