Arizona Program Emerges to Get Progressive Women Elected
6th October 2007
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In a recent Point of View guest column at www.aflcio.org, Brown University Political Science professor Jennifer Lawless described the many reasons more women don't hold elected public office in the United States.
The barriers range from voter bias against women candidates to different standards for men and women office hopefuls and even to women's own perceptions of their qualifications. (Click here to read Lawless's POV).
Dana Kennedy, director of Communications for the Arizona AFL-CIO, told us of one major effort to bridge the political gender gap—Emerge America. The political leadership training program was founded five years ago in California and now includes affiliates in seven states.
Kennedy, a co-chair of Emerge Arizona—along with Arizona AFL-CIO Executive Director Rebekah Friend and Chris Arzaga-Williams—says:
Women often need to be asked to run. Even if they are qualified, they don't think they are.