I am quite happy that a woman is finally top dog in the House of Representatives. I think that is great. It kind of reminds me of some t-shirts a lot of moms in my neighborhood wore when I was growing up that said “A woman’s place is in the House….and Senate” Yay women.
I had to laugh at some of the commentary I have heard about this business of Nancy Pelosi being sworn in because some people have suggested that this marks the end of discrimination against women in the political arena. Uh-huh. I figure that women are around 50% of the population of this country and I figure that there are nearly as many women who would like to be in Congress as there are men who would like to be in Congress so I figure that if there were no discrimination, Congress would be have between 45% and 55% female members. I don’t know exactly how many women are in Congress right now (and yes, I could find out but I am too lazy) but it is no where near 45%. I know that out of 540 members of the 109th Congress, only 82 were women. Now having around 15% of the Congress be female is an improvement over times past when the figure was pretty much 0%. But it also means that the fight for equality for women isn’t over. So Nancy Pelosi’s confirmation as Speaker is a milestone but really it is just one more (important) point on the journey.
1 comment:
It's really interesting to see that in other let's say advanced countries, women in the House or Senate still are much less than men. In Iran, I always figured it was natural that ladies would be much less in political careers than men... obvious reason: ethencity reasons & cultural barrier.
I hope gender discriminations would end one day.
Post a Comment