The Plight of the Female Politician

Yesterday I made jokes about both Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin. It reminded me of making gay jokes, because I felt compelled to follow it up with a defensive disclaimer, that being “Not that I have anything against female politicians!”

We do, indeed, have double standards when it comes to women in power. Often it seems like the only way they can rise in the ranks is to be tougher than their male counterparts – which then makes them look cold and heartless. Here’s a quick inventory of three high-profile female politicians and my immediate reactions to each:

Hillary Clinton – “Ick!”
Nancy Palosi – “Ack!”
Sarah Palin – “Yikes!”

Not that I have anything against female politicians ;)

Really though, the rise of female politicians is long overdue. Where did Diane Feinstein go? I’d vote for her. In fact, I think I once did. The current situation is likely a result of a confluence of social events and political evolution. Politically, in our current system you have to become a career politician to rise to power – coupled with the fact you must be quite rich as well. Those factors, along with the advent of women’s rights and equality finally starting to catch up, pretty much requires they give up most of their personal lives to get themselves into the public eye (See realty shows, stupid overly-opinionated statements and Dancing With the Stars) – without which they are “below the radar” and un-electable. As my dad would point out, that’s not really what our forefathers had in mind. I’ll take my own political temperature here by gauging my reactions to a few political realities:

Career Politicians – “Ick!
Left wing ultra-liberals – “Ack!”
Right wing ultra conservatives – “Yikes!”

Do you think there’s a chance we could ever have representatives that actually looked like the electorate? Instead of a bunch of lawyers, maybe a teacher, a doctor, a small business owner…. Let me try each of those out with my very un-scientific gut-check meter:

Lawyer – “Ick!”
Lawyer – “Ack!”
Lawyer – “Yikes!”

Or

Teacher – “hmmm”
Doctor – “OK – but remember there are other egos in the room, please”
Small Business Owner – “Wow!”

Yes I like this system already! So, Captains of Industry, here’s my fix for the system:

6 year single term Congress
6 year single term President
Judicial system? I’m OK with the way that’s going. I’m sure they’ll all be glad
to hear that.

I guess one argument against this type of system would be that with no insiders, how would they get anything done? Well…. most teachers, doctors and business owners I know are at least as smart as the politicians I know. Perhaps they’d eliminate the large staffs and layers of bureaucracy to simplify the dialogue, thus leading to more direct and open communication among the actual congress(wo)men. I know I know – I’m an optimist!

Oops – what was I talking about again? Oh yeah – females in politics - the current crop being Ick, Ack and Yikes. Well, I’m looking forward to a new crop – hopefully Hmmm, OK and Wow.

You never know. It COULD hap…. Hey! What was that!? I think a monkey just flew out of my butt!!