Women in Politics

This past Tuesday, the Women's Campaign School at Yale hosted its annual dinner and celebrated the accomplishments of women in elective politics.

However, the focus of many organizations that promote "women in politics" is merely on achieving gender parity in governmental bodies, rather than on creating and nurturing a deeper pool of talent from which candidates for public service can be recruited.

What are women's interests? Who speaks for these interests? And are elected women the only plausible guardians of these interests? Women's issues today transcend the outdated and misrepresented notions of the 1960s feminists, who still insist on promulgating myths about abortion and "equal pay." In contrast, the promotion of small business ownership advances the independence, financial security, and well-being of women in a salutary and systemic way. The expansion of Health Savings Accounts and reforms to Social Security should be on the top of the political agenda for organizations purporting to promote the interests of women. Further, female political candidates should be championing these ideas with even more vigor than their male counterparts, if the ideal of gender equity holds any meaning for them.