Monday, September 25, 2006

New Jersey Politics Makes My Head Hurt

I read this interesting article about women politicians in New Jersey and how they haven't exactly been successful. Women in politics makes many people from all 50 states recoil in horror, but this article raised some interesting points.

"Women lead three New Jersey universities - Princeton, Montclair State and the College of New Jersey. The Garden State also ranks 11th in the number of women-owned businesses.

"Three of the seven justices on New Jersey's Supreme Court are women, including the chief justice, Deborah Poritz. Women account for a quarter of all judges in the state's courts - 106 of 440.

"New Jersey ranks sixth in the percentage of women with college degrees, placing it close to Colorado, Massachusetts and Maryland.

"In contrast, New Jersey drops to 31st in the nation in electing women to state and federal offices, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Utah and Texas rank higher; Ohio, Georgia and Tennessee lower. South Carolina is at the bottom."

New Jersey and other states are filled with intelligent women who are competent leaders. What is it with some people that they don't trust women to run the government? And what is it with very few women running for office? I don't get it. Let's discuss it together!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If they're in the Manworld of Politics, they can't have any babies and our endangered species will all die off. :( Everyone knows that women who ar4e educated just aren't good for makin' babies, and if they do happen to getsome fruit in that rotten womb and squeeze it out, if they don't stay home and clap and cheer every time it has a bowel movement, they're not "feminine" enough.

Geeze, don't you KNOW these things?

Anonymous said...

It's because the masses don't elect women to lead colleges, get degrees, and own businesses.

Anonymous said...

I would know these things if I were smarter, but then I my uterus would shrivel up and die, leaving me barren! O, opression!

Anonymous said...

Drew,

While the general population doesn't elect people for those positions, people are hired to those positions or work their way up. They had to prove themselves.

Anonymous said...

It's just that if you're running the government, who's baking the pies?


Honestly though, I think people are just afraid of change.
Of course, there are some who will say "Of course I believe in gender equality!"
but actually, maybe subconsciously, feel women can't do the job.

How do we remedy this? No clue. Apparently, examples and evidence of intelligent and capable women don't affect their inherent bias. :(

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I was unclear. What I meant is that our general population is sexist, so it's harder for women to be elected over men as politicians as opposed to things where they're actually evaluated based on ability.