I'll Say It Again: We Need to Elect More Women

With the loss of Kennedy's senate seat to Republican Scott Brown on Tuesday, Democrats got a wake-up call. They aren't connecting with voters, and that needs to change before the midterm elections role around. Well, watching Martha Coakley get trounced by a guy who once posed for Cosmo makes me hope that women's activists got a wake-up call too.

The women's rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s changed women's lives by convincing lawmakers -- almost all of them men -- to enact measures like affirmative action and Title IX. Though women have come a long way, they face continued discrimination and need lawmakers to continue to recognize the necessity of, for example, better labor laws for women and protecting reproductive rights. Basically, we need more women lawmakers.

In 2000, women were 13 percent of Congress (and, you know, half the American population); in 2009, they were 17 percent. As Katha Pollitt interpreted this statistic: "if women have to make up about 30 percent of leadership before they can move a feminist agenda, we're looking at thirty more years of political marginality." Thirty percent is considered the "critical mass" at which a given group stops being treated as a "special interest." So, as the 2010 elections approach, I hope feminist organizations like EMILY's List and the Women's Campaign Forum are gearing up for a more successful decade then the last.

EMILY'S List, one of the nation's largest political action committees (PAC) dedicated to financing pro-choice female candidates, will change leadership for the first time in its history on February 1, welcoming the new decade with a fresh start. And it is much needed. Criticism of EMILY's List and similar organizations have been a hot topic on feminist blogs over the past few weeks, and not without reason. On Daily Kos, Angry Mouse produced a screed against the organization, claiming it took members' money without producing results. (She has a point; I get emails from EMILY'S List almost every day asking for donations, but when I go to their website to find out other ways to get involved, there is nothing.)

EMILY'S List was founded by Ellen Malcolm, who, at 62, remembers the women's lib of the 60s and 70s. While experience has its benefits, incoming President Stephanie Schriock is 36 and has worked on the progressive, internet-savy campaigns of Howard Dean and then Al Franken, giving her the edge we need today. This is welcome change.

The takeaway: this past year has rattled me. From the recent attacks on reproductive freedom to the persistent realities of wage discrimination, or those untested rape kits in LA (because in tough times, logically the first thing to go is women's health and safety). I am beginning to think that the only way to get issues like violence, discrimination, and abortion taken seriously, even within the Democratic Party, is to have more women serving in that party.

So here's to a new generation of feminist women and the women they will hopefully elect! I'll be keeping an eye on feminist organizations like EMILY'S List, hoping they can lead the way to real progress. First step, make it abundantly clear that women will not stand for Harold Ford Jr.'s already-disastrous impending challenge to Kristen Gillibrand, but more on that another time. But seriously, this is a potential challenge that could mean bad news in a few weeks. Nip it in the bud, EMILY's List; show your teeth.

Photo: Wiki Commons