GWEN hates the question. She get asks the question at every event on the campaign trail, With each passing day of the campaign it stings more. "What makes you think you can do this?"
She thinks the question stinks, and she wants to encourage other women considering running for public office to fight the slings and arrows thrown at female candidates. GWEN is not merely one women; she is every women who has ever picked up a phone and asked someone to cut a $5,000 campaign contribution check for herself. The women of Get Women Elected Now — GWEN — want their to see their sisters in office, yet recent trends seem discouraging. Referring to herself in the third-person singular, the members of GWEN want to change the gender dynamics of Northern Virginia politics.
"You would think that women today would find running for office more acceptable," said Lois Walker, former Alexandria City Council member and one of the founding member of GWEN. "But that’s obviously not the case or you’d see more women running for office."
During a recent meeting of the political action committee in Arlington, women gathered to swap stories from the campaign trail, encourage potential candidates to throw their hats into the ring and provide practical advice about everything from hair care to dealing with the dreaded question. The evening’s keynote address was delivered by Judy Feder, dean of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. GWEN’s mission is personal to her, especially in the wake of her 2006 race against longtime incumbent Rep. Frank Wolf (R-10). She came within striking distance of unseating the senior member of Virginia’s Congressional delegation, polling a 41 percent showing against Wolf’s 57 percent victory.
"We’re not quite there yet," said Feder in the in the ballroom of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. "We’ve got the mentoring and we’ve got the mobilization. But we’re not there yet because we need the money."
WOMEN IN VIRGINIA politics have been have been less successful than in other states. Virginia’s General Assembly is 17 percent female — the lowest percentage of women to serve in elected legislatures. (Vermont has the highest, with 37 percent.) Only eight of the Virginia Senate’s 40 members are women, and only 16 of the House of Delegates’ 100 members are female. Yet according to a fact sheet handed out at last week’s GWEN event, women leaders rule in countries such as Chile, Switzerland, Liberia, Germany and South Korea. In the Old Dominion, GWEN members say, traditional roles of women must be challenged in every election year.
"The war in Iraq is a woman’s issue," said Libby Garvey, chair of the elected Arlington School Board and former candidate for the House of Delegates. "It’s important to remember that all the issues are women’s issues."
GWEN was Garvey’s brainchild, created during the 2006 election cycle to help Feder raise money. The level of support for the idea of a women’s political support group resonated so heavily last year that she knew she had to do something. In a speech outlining the continuing mission of the organization, Garvey said that she was disheartened that no women were on the ballot in a special election in Alexandria to fill a vacated City Council seat.
"We need to encourage a culture of giving," said Amanda Lenk, whose husband Boyd Walker was one of the five male contenders for the Democratic nomination in that race. "Our children see us write checks at the supermarket, but they also need to see us cut a check for the Hillary Clinton campaign. So get out your Princess Leia stamps."
THE POLITICAL ACTION committee consists of some of Northern Virginia’s most powerful women: former Del. Judy Connally (D-48), former Alexandria City Council member Lois Walker, former Del. Marian Van Landingham (D-45), former Del. Karen Darner (D-49) and former Alexandria School Board chair Mollie Danforth. In the future, the organization hopes to connect recently retired and current women elected officials with women who are running in office, thinking of running for office or coul be thinking of running for office with the right amount of encouragement.
"The next generation of women is going to be crucial," said Laurie MacNamra, former president of the Del Ray Citizens Association, who attended the GWEN event last week in Arlington. "Like the previous generations, women are still faced with the challenge of learning how to balance family life with work."
For Teddy Goodson, a Realtor with EPA who attended the event, the difference between a successful female candidate and an unsuccessful one is a matter of "elocution." Women need to cut through the glass ceiling of American politics by speaking as clearly and directly as possible, and she thought that too many female candidates have Web sites she describes as "amateur hour." Yet even though women are not running for office in the numbers she would like to see, she is encouraged that modern women have a different way of looking at the world.
"The current generation of women is much more competitive," said Goodson after the event had concluded. "My generation did not have that kind of team-sports training, and today’s women are much more competitive as a result. We just need to find a way to use that during elections."