Opinions needed
February 3, 2009
by Contributor
|On January 21, the following letter was published in The Columbus (OH) Dispatch:
Dear Editor,
Now that Sen. Voinovich is not running for reelection, as a co-founder of the national nonpartisan women’s group, The New Agenda, we would like to call on both the Democratic and Republican Parties, and any independent parties, to nominate a woman to run as your nominee for the U.S.Senate in 2010. There are many outstanding and qualified women on both sides of the aisle who have proven that they can represent Ohioan’s interests quite ably. State Auditor Mary Taylor and Former Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Bradley come to mind for the Republicans as do Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and former Ohio House Minority Leader Joyce Beatty for the Democrats. Women are 51% of the population and yet only hold 16-17% of the seats in the U.S. Senate (depending on what happens with Sen. Hillary Clinton’s seat once she becomes Secretary of State). Other states have elected women to the Senate — isn’t it time for Ohio to jump on the bandwagon?
CYNTHIA RUCCIA
Today we get this response from one Chris Lenz:
I respond to the Jan. 21 letter “It’s time to put Ohio woman in Senate,” from Cynthia Ruccia. Ruccia made the case that women make up 51 percent of the population but only 16 percent to 17 percent of the seats in the Senate, as if somehow those numbers are relevant to the government and Constitution.
I can’t pretend to understand what it’s like to define somebody by something as trivial as their sex or the color of their skin. People who focus on immaterial things, such as somebody’s external appearance, baffle me.
Instead of voting for a woman for the sake of voting for a woman, how about we vote for the most qualified candidate for the position? And if that person happens to be a woman, then I guess we’re both happy.
Ruccia’s insistence on electing a woman succeeds only in disqualifying qualified candidates for no other reason than one little chromosome.
CHRIS LENZ
Columbus
There are so many ways to respond to his (her) letter — so much ammunition was given. I know for sure that another letter from me won’t be published. So, I’d love to ask all of you to give it your best shot! Please send your response to letters@dispatch.com. The letter must be under 200 words, and must include your name, address, and a daytime phone number. Most papers require that info for verification purposes.
Chris Lenz and all of the misogynists out there need a little educating, and what better folks to do it than the spectacular The New Agenda members?!!
I’m not sure Lenz’s mind can be changed — by his reference to “the color of their skin,” I’m guessing he’s also the type to oppose affirmative action. And the most basic form of affirmative action is what is being urged here: don’t just recruit the guys you know; think about other qualified people too. It’s like what’s required for NFL coaches these days: the Rooney Rule mandates that at least one job interview be offered to someone of a minority group. Not the job, but at least an interview. An owner can’t just think “Hey, I’ll ask the guy in my social network,” she has to open the position for everyone to apply.
“Not many Steelers fans knew much about Tomlin before Cowher resigned Jan. 5 — and, in a rare bit of candor by team president Art Rooney II, the Steelers say they didn’t, either. But Tomlin quickly convinced them during a pair of three-hour interviews he was ready for the job.”
And the Steelers’ first black head coach just won them another Super Bowl. People need to apply that requirement of open interviews and open minds to filling political positions. A lot of people aren’t consciously sexist, but they don’t have a slate of qualified women in their head. Their mental network consists entirely of men.
Maybe there should be a “Rooney Rule” for women in politics, requiring executives who are making appointments and party leaders deciding whom to support to interview at least one woman for every man. There doesn’t have to be parity tomorrow, but there does have to be equal opportunity.
Cynthia – After I read the response letter from Chris Lenz, my first thought was if you subsitute the word woman for the word African American – it would be considered racist. My second thought was to throw something, but it’s a long way from CA to OH.
I think we need to express this better in the press releases with the 16% figure so that we explicitly state that because we are underrepresented by the Government, mysogeny and sexism continues.
Perhaps on issues like this appointment, some language like this might be useful:
“Doing a good job in office is one thing, and campaigning is another thing. We need the best qualified people in office — who are not always those best able and willing to campaign.
“An appointment situation gives us a chance to pick the best Senator, period.
“In the search for best Senator, we urge that extra attention be given to women, as gender discrimination has kept many qualified women in the background.”
here is my response I just sent:
Dear Chris Lenz,
I read your response to Cynthia Ruccia’s letter from The New Agenda, and was shocked at the complete lack of understanding of sexism and women’s issues.
As someone else pointed out, you obviously don’t support affirmative action either, but I wonder if you had received a letter from a black coalition if you would have responded in such a ridiculously nasty way?
Let me spell this out for you since you don’t get it: women have different political concerns and issues to fight for than men. If women aren’t represented in government, then their issues aren’t raised and fought for. Women are needed to protect women’s concerns.
If in 51% of the population you can’t find a more than qualified candidate (and the letter even handed you some), then you are lazy on top of being sexist.
Sincerely,
Lisa Jay
I’ve read Chris Lenz’s letter every which way, and can’t see anything more than a person who advocates voting for the most qualified candidate.
Lenz is perfectly willing to vote for a woman candidate if she’s the most qualified–so how does that make him (her?) a misogynist?
- with any number of jobs, basic qualifications are mandated and the rest is discretionary, so why not give women a shot? Lenz says 16-17% representation is not relevant to the Constitution and the Government and that would be true if there was equity in all other areas but there is no social and economic equity for women. I wonder if he would find some serious militancy on the part of women to be relevant?
Thanks Lisa for writing the letter!!!! You expressed it very well!!
I think Chris’s letter is condescending, and it makes the same old “most qualified candidate argument” that I am frankly sick of. The problem is that if the people who say that really mean it, why are we only 16/17 % represented? The only logical conclusion is that they believe we are only 16/17% qualified. There is a problem somewhere right? Either we DO need to help push for more women because we are under represented, or we must accept the fact that we are in some way inferior and only have enough “qualified candidates” to fill 16/17% of the positions. Which is it?
More info on the Rooney Rule as PG mentioned above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule
“At the start of the 2006 season, the overall percentage of African American coaches had jumped to 22%, up from 6% prior to the Rooney Rule.”
I verified the statistics in the NYU Law Review article and they are accurate.
hi, Thia…I completely agree there is a problem somewhere, just not with people who want the most qualified candidates. imo that is a respectable viewpoint, especially understandable at a time when the entire country is being confronted with the results of gross incompetence. and for that reason alone, I doubt the case of “women because they’re women” is going to get very far. right now voter buzzwords like “most qualified” “most honest”, etc., will be trumping all other considerations. The people who are choosing these criteria are not misogynists–they’re fed up and deeply concerned.
I think the better evidence of institutional sexism/misogyny rests with the percentages. what other explanation could there be for the disparity between the number of women in both our overall population and the current workforce (51%/46%) and the miserable 16/17% representation? the numbers are undeniable and there is no other explanation than the subtle sexism/misogyny Amy has spoken of in her media interviews. The numbers are our proof sexism and misogyny exist.
Thia,
Yes, exactly — before the Rooney Rule, people just shrugged and figured there weren’t many qualified African American coaches (even though coaches are drawn almost entirely from people who played at least college ball, and African Americans are the majority of Div. I football players). Requiring that at least one interview be given to a minority has opened people’s eyes to the talented coaches that they simply had not known were out there. I don’t think that ignorance was based on a conscious racism of “I’m going to ignore black talent”; it was just the subconscious, institutional racism in which powerful white people didn’t have a lot of black people in their social network and sincerely didn’t know that these coaches existed.
It’s a similar subconscious, institutional sexism that makes the first list of qualified candidates that comes to some people’s minds be all-male. They aren’t consciously thinking, “Let’s shut women out of this”; they just are ignorant about the huge number of talented women out there. Gov. Paterson voiced a concern like this when he was troubled that none of the candidates suggested to fill Chief Judge Kaye’s seat were women. Maybe he wouldn’t have picked a woman even if there had been one on the list, because maybe she wouldn’t have been the kind of person needed in the position right then*, but if a woman’s never even thought of, then there’s no fair chance at all.
* The guy who ultimately was picked has a great record of working with Judge Kaye to implement the ideas she originated and will be really good at the administrative role, although I haven’t heard of his being the absolute smartest judge in NY state. This is another reason why “most qualified” is kind of a meaningless phrase in many of these things; Chief Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court might be more intellectually brilliant than the new NY chief judge, but we didn’t need the most intellectual person in that role, we needed someone who balanced good intellect with great administrative skills. It reminds me of the way college admissions staff build a class: they don’t want 500 kids who were all valedictorians with a perfect SAT. They want a mix of the best at different things: some valedictorians, but also some kids who started their own businesses in high school, or who wrote a symphony at 15.
Just to throw a stink bomb in—-not everyone feels that what we are experiencing economically is a result of “gross incompetence.” It is a majority opinion, but let’s face it—–politically, people have felt that whatever situation we find ourselves in is a result of “gross incompetence” by the other party, i.e. the party they don’t like. Also, economic downturns are practically endemic to our system. As a business owner, I’ve lived through 4 of them, and this one at this point isn’t terribly different than any of them. The only real difference is that this time around we have a much more rabid media that trumpets our disaster 24/7 scaring people to death and causing them to hunker down. I’m not meaning that to minimize the problems people are having, it’s just that we’ve seen all of this before. American capitalism has its business cycles.
It’s a different subject than gender voting. Alot of us still see Chris Lenz’s letter as sexist. Some don’t. That difference is an interesting discussion.
[...] The New Agenda for starters. The group pushes full force at identity politics in the name of gender equity in [...]
KayJL,
Unfortunately, the sexism applies all the way up the pipeline. From childhood through childbearing years, the females are pressured aside or left behind with their babies or bitchbimboed out if they try to run for office. Thus fewer women make it to the top of the pipeline — where we would normally look for qualified candidates.
So, rewording my earlier language, to find the person most qualified for the actual job performance, we may have to look outside the usual box of ‘credentials’.
(Still not right, but I’m working on it….
There’s research on the subject of how people make decisions about qualifications. The sociologists and cognitive psychologists are not asleep at the switch. And the results show that, for instance, the identical essay said to be authored by a female is evaluated lower than when said to be written by a male.
The reason we need “affirmative action” is not because women need any help but because people like Chris Lenz do. They’re the ones holding us back from getting the best people for the job. They tell us they want the best qualified people, and then they can’t see them with a telescope.
KayJL
“I think the better evidence of institutional sexism/misogyny rests with the percentages. what other explanation could there be for the disparity between the number of women in both our overall population and the current workforce (51%/46%) and the miserable 16/17% representation? the numbers are undeniable and there is no other explanation than the subtle sexism/misogyny Amy has spoken of in her media interviews. The numbers are our proof sexism and misogyny exist.”
I disagree with this as proof of sexism. Until we know how many women actually run for office, how they fair, and how they are treated by the media and their political party, it’s impossible to make the connection you, and others, make regarding the 17% statistic. If women ran for 17% of Congressional seats and were thusly represented, it would be a sign that women can indeed be highly successful when they run for office. If, on the other hand, women in recent history (would need to be defined), have run for 60% of the seats, but continue to wind up with less than 20%, then something’s going on. Even in that case, one would have to look at the race leading up to who the candidate ultimately becomes for the final election, etc. I’d love to know if there’s anyone out there with data who has analyzed this. Without that, all the 17% number tells me is that we’re underrepresesnted, but it doesn’t tell me why.
Anna you forget, sexism effects whether women will even bother to run for office. If you were a PTA/Hockey mom thinking about trying to make a difference in your community by running for city council or mayor, would you be more or less likely to run after watching what was done to Palin? Most people that run for higher office have started by holding similar positions in their local communities. My guess is that if we reflect on the numbers in about ten years, they will have taken a huge nose dive in women running for office after this election season. I’m sure a consideration will be whether they will be SOB’d like Palin and Clinton were. I hope the opposite happens, that women get angry and MORE run, but I fear that is just my wishful thinking.
Anna…very good points re: analysis of the stats. and true as well– we do need to look at those numbers in context with how many women are seeking public office.
quixote…”people like Chris Lenz?” we know nothing about Chris Lenz, or the process by which he (or she) identifies candidates as “most qualified.” we only know that Lenz prefers a criteria of “most qualified” and is happy to vote for a woman if she meets that criteria.
I’m just not seeing where anything Lenz has written qualifies him/her as a misogynist. My impression is that Lenz disagrees with Cynthia’s approach and that’s all. if I were to respond to Lenz’s letter it would be to point out that Cynthia specifically calls for the nomination of “qualified” woman candidates. whether they are the “most” qualified candidates is for voters to decide. I would also point out to Lenz that the criteria followed by the two major parties all too often nominates the candidate deemed most “electable”, the candidate capable of raising the most money, or perhaps even the candidate next in line, which does less to satisfy Lenz’s desire for a “most qualified” candidate than what Cynthia offers by suggesting women with substantive experience from both sides of the aisle.
I agree with Kay. In the times we are in the most important thing is values and principles. We need the best person for the job be it a woman, minority or even (gasp) a man.
It’s no longer about small issues to me. It’s about what will my children be left with when we are done. The times we are in demand the cream of the crop. I agree with Chris Lenz as well and after reading that letter it does not sound like Chris is asking for anything less than just the best possible candidate. Can you tell me what’s wrong with that?
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