This is the second and last column I wrote for a magazine that had a change at the helm. You know what that’s like; the new person wants to make their own decisions and hire their own people. It’s all good. But why let a collection of carefully chosen sentences go to waste? And so I ranted: In my first conversation with the founder of London’s Women and Politics, Shawna Lewkowitz, I asked her why a woman would ever run for office. That’s a bit like asking a beef farmer why she isn’t a vegetarian. But there was validity to my query in a pre-#metoo world, given the extra scrutiny a female candidate would inevitably face. While male candidates are historically dissected for their opinions on policies, women have had extra attention put on what they wear, whether or not their voices are shrill and other subjective attributes that have nothing to do with their fitness for office. It’s not just male journalists and pundits who are guilty of this. Women can be other women’s worst critics.
However, a revolution is underway and we’re seeing a change in tactics. When reporters began to question a man, specifically Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, about his hair, their colleagues hung their heads in professional shame. Serious journalists are appalled by any attention to Trudeau’s looks even as magazines around the world consider our P.M. a pin-up model for political life. Discussion of Trudeau’s sex appeal or wild socks is soft-ball media at its worst. Reporters, who perhaps didn’t get it before, suddenly saw with clarity why it’s sexist and wrong to treat a female politician like an object.
That doesn’t mean it’s suddenly an easy ride for women who choose to run in an election. It’s not easy for anyone. I’d wager that everyone who’s run for office, from the municipal level to Parliament Hill, has been told they are hated in the heat of anger. Constituents can turn into hormonal teenagers via outbursts on social media and voice mail messages left at high volume, as their version of slamming the bedroom door on Mom and Dad. If someone is motivated enough to use the word hate, they ought to turn their tantrum into a letter of complaint to their councilor, MPP or MP, show up at a demonstration, or at minimum, vote on Election Day. Blame what or whom you want from Donald Trump to Justin Trudeau, but political divisiveness is at an all-time high, at every level.
Four of fourteen London City Councilors are women. Our city’s first female Mayor, Jane Bigelow, broke the glass ceiling back in 1972. Three women have worn the chain of office since then, counting five glorious months under the helm of interim Mayor Joni Baechler. Women outnumber men in London and have for decades, so it’s only fair to have more females in power. The climate seems better than ever for women to enter the races.
Two opportunities to change our corner of the world via a democratic vote occur this year; the provincial election in June and the municipal election in October. (The next federal election is slated for October 2019). Women not only should run, but must run, and wear whatever they damn well please when they do it.
PS. Women and Politics convinced me to stop saying “qualified” women should run for political office. A man isn’t automatically qualified just because he has the ambition, and sometimes he gets elected. What makes a person qualified, anyway? Hillary Clinton was qualified; Donald Trump wasn’t. Any woman who wants the job should run. Period. The same as any man.