E-Mail This Article to a Friend What women want A new report sheds light on why Boston municipal government has traditionally been a man’s world — and how that reflects the obstacles women face in every realm of Bay State politics BY DEIRDRE FULTON
	How do Bay State women’s political chances stack up against the rest of the country? SURE, THINGS ARE bad in Boston, but is it any better anywhere else? Well, yes and no. Here’s a glimpse at how much of the pie women are able to grab on the state level, and nationally. • In 2005, women occupy 80 of the 535 seats in US Congress (there are 14 women in the Senate and 66 in the House) — that’s 15 percent, and the highest percentage ever. • Of the 315 statewide elective executive offices (including governorships, lieutenant-governor positions, secretaries of state, and attorneys general), 80 are held by women. That’s just 25.4 percent, a decline from the all-time high of 27.6 percent in 1999. • 1664 of 7382 state legislators are women — 22.5 percent. • There are 20 women of color in the US Congress (all in the House). Women of color make up 25 percent of women representatives and 3.5 percent of total members. • Five women of color serve in statewide elective offices across the nation. • Massachusetts has never elected a woman governor (Jane Swift assumed the position after Paul Cellucci left to become US ambassador to Canada), a woman mayor, or a woman senator. There are currently nine women governors across the country; 25 have been elected in US history. • Three women have represented Massachusetts in the US Congress; the last female representative was Margaret Heckler, who left in 1983. • Massachusetts ranks 20th nationally in terms of female statewide elected officials. • In the state legislature, 50, or 25 percent of the senators and representatives are women. Of those, six are women of color. All facts are the most recent available from the Eagleton Institute of Politics’ Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. — DF

THERE’S SOMETHING to this idea of a New Boston. Changing demographics undoubtedly helped usher in victories for Andrea Cabral in last year’s Suffolk County sheriff race and for Linda Dorcena Forry in last week’s special state-representative elections. The strong showing by Stacey Monahan, one of Dorcena Forry’s opponents, also demonstrates that women are connecting with voters with more and more frequency. But for all that, oddly, New Boston’s momentum has yet to sweep through the Boston City Council — a traditional launching pad for Massachusetts political careers.

How’s this for glacial progress: in 80 years, only nine women have been elected to the city council, according to As Tough As It Gets: Women in Boston Politics, 1920-2004, a report released Thursday by the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy (CWPPP) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Right now, two women serve on the 13-member body; and they, like their predecessors, are white.

The report, which is the first to provide a comprehensive history of women on the council, shows that far fewer female candidates than male ones run for city council — and that they face significant hurdles when they do. That’s not to suggest women are absent from City Hall or other high-profile city posts: City Clerk Rosaria Salerno (a council alumna), Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole, Massachusetts Department of Correction commissioner Kathleen Dennehy, Department of Neighborhood Development head Charlotte Golar Richie, and the city’s chief financial officer, Lisa Signori, to name just a few, spring to mind. But those are all appointed positions.

To be fair, the city council’s dramatic gender imbalance is not entirely the fault of city voters, who have, at one time or another, sent strong female candidates such as Marie St. Fleur, Marian Walsh, and Dianne Wilkerson, as well as Dorcena Forry and Golar Richie, to the state legislature.

As it turns out, according to the CWPPP report, the dearth of women on the council results from several factors:

• Women in general are simply less likely to decide, on their own, to run for office. "Women are less likely to step up to the plate — they really need to be recruited," explains Mary Fifield, president of the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, an organization that works to get more women elected to office, among other goals. "It really is sort of a latter-day version of sixth grade. You know, girls and boys get to the sixth grade, and boys are still thrusting their hands up in the air, all the time, with the answers. If they don’t have the right answer, they’re still comfortable taking a shot at it. Girls stop putting their arms up."

That’s why women with a "kinship network," or pre-existing political connections, have fared so much better, says report co-author Kristen Petersen. They have mentors to nudge them forward and guide them, as well as the support to get past political hierarchies traditionally dominated by men.

To create that kind of political foundation, experts advise getting involved in neighborhood associations, ward committees, other political campaigns, or state-party organizations.

• Boston’s city-government structure is not conducive to women’s dipping a toe into the political waters. "I think there is a lot of evidence to suggest that Boston is a city whose diversity in its politics was hindered greatly by the elimination of an elected School Committee," says Senator Wilkerson, suggesting that female candidates often get their foot in the door as a result of their interest in their children’s education.

In addition, the strong-mayor/weak-council relationship has historically allowed Boston mayors to perform a "key gate-keeping role in determining who can and cannot win a city council seat," according to the report. (Seth Gitell, a spokesman for Mayor Thomas Menino, says this mayor has never played a gate-keeping role for either male or female candidates.)

• Political organizations interested in promoting female candidates need better coordination and more-effective strategies. "You have to build an infrastructure, and you have to consistently field candidates that are credible, and to whom that infrastructure can become attached," Sheriff Cabral says.

This type of infrastructure, attentive to organization and strategy, doesn’t really exist for women on the municipal level, and therefore the benefits of creating a "farm team" of city candidates (who can later be funneled up through the state legislature and even on to bigger posts) are too often elusive. However, recent signs suggest that political organizations are getting "smarter about strategy," Wilkerson says. "I think there’s a piece missing: the opportunity for sitting elected officials to mentor," she adds. "We have not done all that we could to cultivate and encourage from an internal perspective."

• Women must be more creative in their fundraising strategies, especially if they don’t come up through the party ranks with family support. Women aren’t as adept at asking for money, the report says, and, interestingly, unless they "do business in town" they are less inclined to give to political candidates. That said, women also lack access to built-in networks and informal venues such as the golf course.

"If our process is weeding out people who don’t have means," Fifield says, "that’s a serious problem for democracy."