Jean Warner wants former women legislators to be more vocal for younger women: “I can do it, you can do it.”

by Gene Perry

In 1921, Oklahoma elected the second woman ever to serve in the U.S. Congress and the first to defeat an incumbent representative. Though Rep. Alice Mary Robertson was a pathbreaker for Oklahoma women, she was defeated after one term, and that path went back to the weeds. Oklahoma did not elect another woman to Congress until Mary Fallin in 2006.

Today we have two prominent female candidates for governor, Fallin and Jari Askins, but the large disparity in female representation remains. Oklahoma is next to last in the U.S. for the percentage of women in the state legislature, ahead of only South Carolina.

Women make up 11.4 percent of our state senators and representatives, compared to the national average of 24.2 percent. That works out to 12 women in the House and 5 in the Senate, out of 149 total seats.

States with the most female representation are New Hampshire, Vermont, and Colorado, each with about 37 percent.

“We’ve gone backwards,” said Oklahoma Women’s Coalition Chair Jean Warner. “Oklahoma used to have a larger proportion of women in the legislature than we do today.”

The Coalition is a group of about 200 members and 25 organizations that advocates for policies related to Oklahoma women and girls. They try to inject the perspective of women into issues before the legislature, since so few women can do the job directly as legislators.

“We get better policies out if people from all walks of life are at the table helping to fashion the policy,” Warner said.

Leslie Blair, Public Information Officer for the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, agrees.

“When women are at the table, the issues change,” Blair said.

One example is the Belle Maxine Hilliard Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Fund, created in 2004. Before then, Oklahoma was the only state in the country that didn’t fund breast and cervical cancer screenings through Medicaid. The bill was sponsored by Senator Debbe Leftwich and Representative Danny Hilliard, whose mother had died of breast cancer.

Kendra Smith, an intern for the Coalition, suggested domestic violence and rape laws, the handling of children in foster care, and homelessness as other areas that would be different if more female political leaders could advocate for them. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Oklahoma ranks 42nd nationwide (pdf) for women’s overall health and well-being.

“The legislature is not intentionally passing bills that hurt women so much as not bringing these issues to light,” Warner said. “In some areas, God love them, guys don’t get it. It just doesn’t resonate with them.”

Women can win, but first they have to run

Katie Fitzgerald, director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) for the Carl Albert Center at the University of Oklahoma, said the problem is not as much that women can’t win elections, but that they don’t run as frequently as men.

“When women do run, they tend to win as much as men do,” she said.

The WLI is on the front lines of the effort to encourage women in politics. They offer an intensive, five day institute for Oklahoma undergraduate women, where they participate in a campaign simulation, network at the State Capitol, and meet some of Oklahoma’s top women politicians. The institute is part of the nationwide National Education for Women’s (NEW) Leadership program.

For women outside of college, the Pipeline to Politics program seeks to encourage and inform them about political and other leadership opportunities. WLI is also working on a partnership with the Girl Scouts of Western Oklahoma to reach younger girls.

Fitzgerald said 35 women per year participate in N.E.W. Leadership, and more apply than they can admit. She said what their programs can accomplish is relatively small given the issue, and parties need to do a better job of recruiting women candidates.

“Women tend not to be recruited within parties,” Fitzgerald said. “Women who were equally qualified are more likely than men to doubt their capability for office.”

Blair, who is also an alumnus of N.E.W. Leadership, said that while she thinks both parties are doing better at involving women, it is still a “boy’s club when it comes time to recruit. Men will think of other men because that’s who they know.”

Importance of role models

While women are more active in the Democratic Party, Fitzgerald said there are “fewer and fewer Republican women running and therefore winning.”

In a conservative state where Republicans control both houses of the legislature, encouraging Republican women is particularly important, said Warner. Because there are no Republican women in the Republican-controlled Senate, women are excluded from all Senate leadership positions.

The lack of role models and connections for women becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

“What young woman who’s a Republican is going to think, ‘I want to run for the State Senate,’ when there’s not a single [Republican] woman in the State Senate?” Warner said.

Kim Roberts, the press secretary for Jari Askins, said women tend to be not as actively ambitious as men without encouragement.

“Existing women in politics should make a point to encourage however they can the younger generation,” she said. “It can be a really intimidating thing knowing you’re the least informed person in the room at first, especially if you’re one of only one or two women in the room.”

Roberts said she enrolled in N.E.W. Leadership at the urging of former State Democratic Party Chair Lisa Pryor.

“She printed the application and said ‘fill this out,’” Roberts said.

The camaraderie developed with other women in that program has led Roberts to try to give back and encourage others in turn, but she said other groups are not pushing as hard as N.E.W. to get women involved.

Warner said she wants the handful of women who are past legislators to speak out more to younger women.

“I’d like to see a lot of them being more vocal about it – I can do it, you can do it,” she said.