With all the euphoria sweeping the world on the election of the first bi-racial president, here is something that might have slipped under your radar screen:
New Hampshire’s State Senate is now unlike any in the country and unlike any before it. After Tuesday’s election, women now make up the majority of the New Hampshire State Senate. In an election year that saw Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Nancy Pelosi grab headlines and airtime across the country, New Hampshire didn’t just vote blue, it voted for women.
In addition to voting in a new state senate with a female majority, New Hampshire voted for the only female candidate in the primary, Hillary Clinton, and voted for the first New Hampshire woman, Jeanne Shaheen, to go to the US Senate.
Previously ten women held senate seats out of twenty-four in Concord, but now they hold thirteen. New Hampshire also made news in Washington where there are now seventeen women for the first time in the United States Senate because of Jeanne Shaheen’s win. To show the contrast, both United States Senate and House of Representatives are 17% female.
It looks like those millions of cracks in the glass ceiling are spreading.
Yes, women are holding thirteen seats out of twenty-four in New Hampshire. Women have the majority. First time. Evah.
Hallelujah New Hampshire!
I feel more ecstatic about this news than I do the other!
Women. Rule.
I am with you on that all the way, with the exception of women like Palin. She is something else, that woman, and if her type was majority then I don't know if that'd be a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI congratulate New Hampshire though, it's also a huge step for mankind (pardon the pun)!
Sounds good. But what difference will they make in practice? How will they actually improve women's lives now they have the chance to do so? Just wondering....
ReplyDeleteGaye:
ReplyDeleteI believe that New Hampshire is fairly progressive as a state (they voted HRC in the primaries) and their records as Dems speak for themselves.
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Nick:
ReplyDeleteI guess the same questions can be asked of BO, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
As I view the US as being somewhat retrograde (Anti-feminist, Prop 8, continuous hassle of Roe vs Wade, fundie everywhere one looks, et al) this achievement in New Hampshire is breathtaking.
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I agree! Breathtaking! Thank you for pointing it out - I saw the report about Jeanne Shaheen, but not the rest of the story.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the slant towards women will spread slowly but surely westward.
It'll find a few roadblocks hereabout though. We're still not quite into the 20th century!!
Best we can do is a woman as Lieutenant Governor - better than nothing, I guess.
Teaspoons, T, as our friends at Shakesville say. That's how we move the ocean.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your L-G, here in Canada our Federal L-G is both black and bilingual (and brilliant and gorgeous too!)
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Even in very liberated and progressive countries, women sometimes make slow strides. It's not always the glass ceiling, but the choices women make in their careers, still putting their husbands careers before their own, when there is no social pressure to say that you have to.
ReplyDeleteSome women still want to have the kids and work part time and not get into serious careers. The husband gets all the space to build up a work status.
A lot of women escape having the stress of a more than full time job out of doors, by immersing themselves in their family life as the primary care giver. Even women with university degrees do this.
It's women themselves who need a change of attitude, at least in the Netherlands they do. There should be nothing holding them back.
And the news just keeps getting better and better.
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Irene:
ReplyDeleteI'm doing some research at the moment on how women's majorities in government change Da Rules (nurseries on site, hours changed to accommodate school pickups, etc.)
We need to change how the world values children & childcare responsibilities (not at all is usually the case).
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Pants:
ReplyDeleteLet's hope it's not fantasy, I'm still clinging to my inner cynic.
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