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From the President of the Board
Women and the Political Pipeline
Marco Rubio's announcement that he will seek the Republican Party presidential nomination and will not stand for re-election to his U.S. Senate seat, followed by Jeff Miller's acknowledgement that he is giving serious consideration to taking a run at Rubio's seat, set off an adrenaline bomb among political gatekeepers in the state and in Northwest Florida. Suddenly, what was going to be a mildly interesting election season (no one was all that excited about the presidential contest yet) became electric.
Though these elections are hard-nosed business, the boys who engage in it, wield influence in it, analyze it, report it, make money from it, are hog-heaven elated. The game is afoot--and it is a game, of power and the ability to raise money. Are there any women playing it? Ryan Wiggins perhaps, as analyst and potential consultant. No other names come to mind.
What was immediately obvious is that not one woman's name was mentioned as a potential candidate for either seat. There is no mystery about the reason for this: The political pipeline that feeds into these positions has no women in it. If Holly Benson, Lois Benson, DeeDee Ritchie (now Davis), or Debbie Ritchie were still serving in the Florida House, they might have been positioned strongly enough to be in that pipeline for Miller's seat.
What is a political pipeline? A recently published University of Missouri study on the status of women summarizes it well:
Political gatekeepers, such as party leaders, elected officials, and nonelected political activists, often recruit candidates for statewide office from the pool of local officeholders....Similarly, candidates for national office are likely to be recruited from the ranks of statewide office holders. The beneficiaries of this pipeline to political office historically have been men, resulting in an American political arena controlled almost exclusively by men.
....Increasing the number of women who run for and are elected to local and state political office will add more women to the political pipeline, which is an important step toward gender parity and equal power in local, state and national government.
Before the Institute for Women in Politics of Northwest Florida was founded in August 2013, there was NO concerted, organized, community-wide and region-wide effort to encourage women to consider running for office and to offer them campaign and civic leadership training. We know that progress will be slow until there are more local women with the will, the drive, and the fortitude to enter public service. Whenever women do run, we are here to stand by them and to show them what they need to do to succeed.
You can stand by us in this endeavor by becoming a member. Let's fill that pipeline!
~~ Diane Mack
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