Invite a Woman to Run
Women hold 27% of the elected seats in Utah. We can do better. Studies show that women are willing to run, but will often not seek an elected seat until someone asks them to consider a run.
Here are five things you can do to put more smart, hard-working women into Utah’s elected offices.
Invite a woman to run. When you are working, volunteering, at church, engaging in hobbies, at dinner, and you find yourself in a conversation with a strong, competent woman, challenge her to run. If we all do this, those strong, smart women will be asked by multiple people and will seriously begin considering a run.
If you are a woman, consider a run. This is your invitation. There are so many levels of government where you can serve. From part-time to full-time, there is something you can be doing now.
Contribute money and time to women’s political campaigns. Don’t just offer lip service.
Support the woman who is running. Support can come in more personal ways. When you have the conversation with a woman about a run (see #1), she will tell you the things in her life that may suffer with her taking on a new role. Can you shore up any of those things for her?
Encourage people in positions of power to appoint more women to volunteer positions in the local community. Submit names. Often these positions can lead to elected races. Put more women on planning commissions, art organizations, economic boards, water boards, historic committees, etc., and they will be rubbing shoulders with leaders, actively engaging in community decisions and possibly seeing themselves in elected roles.
There are resources in the community that can help women run. People who organize, advocacy groups, political parties, donors and volunteers are all needed for successful campaigns. Identifying members of these groups and then seeking out information and support are great early steps. For a state that gave women the vote earlier than most, that elected the first woman to sit in a state legislative seat, and that built equal rights into the original state constitution, Utahns just need to look to the past for direction on how to deal with these issues now. We can do better. Let’s step up!