I wouldn’t exactly call it election fever but one local group of concerned citizens is already looking forward to the municipal election next October.
At the Women in Politics Forum earlier this month community leaders were trying to inspire a new generation of bright, young women to seek elected office.
If their efforts are successful perhaps incumbent Mayor Hobbs will once again face a woman at the polls.
He defeated Lynn Peterson last time, at least partly due to the somewhat misguided but popular notion that it was time for a change.
Perhaps Thunder Bay city council is ready for more change and gender balance might be a good place to start.
According to the United Nations the minimum standard for women in government is 30 per cent if women’s issues are to be effectively dealt with.
Right now only two of 13 local city councillors are female.
So in order to achieve even the minimum, some councillor dudes will have to be defeated and the incumbent women must be either re-elected or replaced with other women.
Of course before this can happen, Women in Politics is looking for the right candidates to challenge the mayor, sitting male councillors and the status quo.
It has always been difficult recruiting women to run for office and the results so far are not encouraging either here in our own city or in higher levels of government.
As of 2013 Canada ranked 46th in the world for women participating in politics, finally pulling ahead of Mauritania in western North Africa.
In the last federal election we sent 76 women to Ottawa, a somewhat dubious accomplishment, comprising 25 per cent of the House of Commons.
It’s even less impressive when you consider more than half of our country is female.
At the municipal level Canada still has a long way to go to meet the minimum acceptable international standard.
Across the country we see a few female provincial premiers and a smattering of mayors and city councillors but for some reason, women are generally very reluctant to run for office.
If the Women in Politics group expect to discover politically ambitious women locally, federally or provincially they are facing an uphill battle.
A broad survey of potential candidates clearly showed that women, at all ages, professions and income levels were much less interested in a political career than men.
In spite of changing attitudes and perceptions, running for public office remains a very unattractive choice among women.
This so-called “ambition gap” persists across generations and over time.
Women are also less likely to shoot themselves in the foot, poke themselves in the eye or engage in chest-thumping or aggressive grunting.
What self-respecting woman (or man) would subject themselves to that?
Our House of Commons is a zoo and most of the cages are filled with tamed men who do exactly what they’re told.
Is that a reasonable ambition for our sisters, daughters and mothers?
It may take a while but eventually the barriers will be eliminated and women will achieve their political goals and assume more leadership roles.
Some will ascend to the highest offices and boardrooms where they will discover exactly how inept, self-serving and dysfunctional male dominated politics has been.
They will have quite a mess to clean up when they arrive, after generations of testosterone-driven leadership.
They may ask themselves what they were thinking.
This local group deserves our community’s support and recognition for trying to bring some balance and good sense to local politics but I suggest they proceed with caution.
Good luck but be careful what you wish for.
