Women Stepping Up to Campaign, Win, and Lead

I recently had lunch with a woman who was interested in running for local office. An accomplished professional with her own company and a long history in the nonprofit world, she’d begun to reflect on the consequences of a Trump presidency and recognized she wanted to play a larger civic role in her community.

As a political consultant, I’m often peppered with questions about what a candidate can expect from a political campaign. How much time does it require? How much money do I need to raise? Who do I need to align myself with? The questions run the gamut from “what color should my logo be” to “when should I hire a campaign manager.” And for almost all of these questions, there are smart, often immediate answers:

It takes all your time.

Make nice with the local/state party and get to know donors in your professional community.

Red and/or blue in your logo, or you cost yourself 2 percent on election day.

Certain questions are to be expected. Concerns about money, political ideology, and paths to victory deeply inform both a person’s decision to run, as well as the kind of campaign they wage. But over the years and particularly since last November’s election when a flood of calls and emails came into my office from women around the country considering running for local office, I’ve noticed a difference between the questions I get from male candidates versus female candidates. Men are concerned with issues of power, tactics, and influence. Women are concerned with their right to be in the game. In almost a decade of political consulting, I’ve never had a male candidate ask me:

Can I do this and still be a good parent?

Will the public hate me?

Will I have to compromise my integrity?

Am I worthy of the office?

These are the first questions my lunch companion asked me, and it wasn’t the first time I’d heard them. There’s a fundamental difference in the way men and women approach running for office, and it’s no surprise that society prefers and encourages the traditionally male way of charging boldly forward over a more traditionally female manner of caution and self-reflection.

Men make the choice to run for office because they want to run for office. They don’t need anyone’s permission. They don’t concern themselves with whether or not it’s their turn, or if someone else might already be in line. This is not an indictment of men, nor their attitudes about elections. The unfortunate truth is that campaigns are combat, and if you don’t fundamentally believe you belong in that office, you can’t possibly win your place in it.

But therein lies the problem: Men and women are still measuring themselves by different standards when it comes to taking seats in government, and as a society, we’re paying for that imbalance by furthering a paradigm that undervalues women and their contributions.

Telling women to simply act more like men if we want to play on the same field hasn’t always gone well. Intellectually, we think the same rules should apply to everyone, but where we applaud men for being confident and direct, the same behavior makes women “shrill” or “unlikeable.” Try to wade into the still male-dominated realm of politics and government, and women are likely to run into even unintended sexism. We began crucifying Hillary Clinton more than two decades ago for a remark she made about preferring legal work over baking cookies. The sheer tonnage of misogyny and double standards she endured less than a year ago during her presidential bid indicates we’ve still got a long way to go before our systems of power fully accept women as equal partners. What we can and must do is help women realize that we have just as much right to be at the table as men. We must encourage women — all women, whether cis, trans, gay, bi, hetero, or non-conforming — to campaign, win, and lead. We must be vocal advocates for them when they do decide to run, and we must give them all the support we can by volunteering our time and dollars.

In the 115th U.S. Congress, women hold just 83 out of 435 House seats and 21 of 100 Senate seats. It’s 2017, and the United States just opted for a president who boasts about sexual assault over one of the most accomplished women in the world. It is critical that we recruit, train, and support women for office because representation in government doesn’t just have policy implications: The more we see women in leadership roles, the less culturally acceptable it becomes to treat them like subordinates.

To paraphrase the advice I gave my lunch companion, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. While women have made great progress since the days when we weren’t allowed to vote, own property, or get a credit card in our name, when it comes to having a voice in how we’re governed, we are underserved and underutilized. It’s time to tap this reservoir of talent because when women step up to play a larger role in our communities, we all win.

Sonia Van Meter is the Managing Partner of Stanford Campaigns and a Political Partner with Truman National Security Project. Views expressed are her own.