Education and Training
What One Girl Learned at Pathways:
Ask a Woman to Run for Office
A recent CAWP study of state legislators confirmed what scholars have long known: While almost half of men in state legislatures are “self-starters” who decided to seek office entirely on their own, only about a quarter of the women fit that description.
In contrast, a majority of women say they were recruited to run – they hadn't thought seriously about running until someone else suggested it. So at the conclusion of Pathways to Politics, CAWP asks each Girl Scout to invite a woman she knows to run for office.
Here's one girl's story, emailed to CAWP months after the program:I wrote [my letter] to a woman in my community who I greatly admire and respect. She is the supermom of my town, writes a monthly arts column for the local newspaper, and is active in our Voices for the Performing Arts Foundation, as well as everything else in town. I wrote that letter to her and sent it the day I left Pathways.
I didn't go home for another week (my mom and I were doing college visits while we were back east), so I had no idea she had received my letter. Well, when I got home there was an email waiting for me from her. After she had received my letter/request, she had decided to run for City Council. She ran this past fall and won! She is now one of three women on a board of six!
I don't write this to boast about my letter writing skills (I'm not very talented at it), but to show all the people who planned Pathways and helped create the event that they have made a difference. We are changing the view of women in politics!