By Deb Stevens Fitzgerald

WHY ARE SO few women in elected and appointed positions of influence in the central Shenandoah Valley? Or, for that matter, in Virginia and the United States? Globally, the United States ranks 57th in the world; only 14.9 percent of national and statewide elective officers are women. Virginia isn’t much better, ranking 41st in the nation, with a legislature that is 17.1 percent female. 

How about local councils, commissions and boards? There are no women on the five-member Rockingham County Board of Supervisors, and just one on the five-member Harrisonburg City Council. No women on the seven-member city or five-member county Planning Commissions. That’s one woman official out of 22, or 4.5 percent of the membership of the local policymaking bodies that direct growth, planning and development in the central Valley.

So why aren’t there more women on the boards and commissions of local government? Some say that women don’t run for office or apply for positions, but that’s not always the case. This past January, seven people (including two women) applied for two open positions on the Harrisonburg Planning commission. One woman, a recently retired physician and longtime city resident and community activist, was not even asked to interview before council.

The other was me.

Despite the support of two long-time Democrats on the current council, certification from the Virginia Planning Commission program, service on the board of Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance, a master’s degree in business administration, 25 years of teaching statistics and economics and an empty nest, I was interviewed and turned down. Men were awarded both spots, keeping the city planning commission free of women for another four years.

Why are women so under-represented in American government?

It’s not that we’re absent from the local, regional and national economy. Statistics show that women directly spend or strongly influence 80 percent of consumer purchases.

It’s not that we’re less educated. Women account for more than half of graduates of colleges, universities and many advanced and professional degree programs.

It’s not that women aren’t a major influence in the business and corporate world. A 2001 Pepperdine University study showed that profits (measured as a percent of revenues) at Fortune 500 firms with the highest promotion levels of women in power were 34 percent higher than the industry median.

Corporations that embrace diversity are more open to thinking in a broad way about their mission, more connected to their customers and more open to new approaches to how and why they operate. According to a study by Milwaukee Women, Inc., companies that recruit, retain and advance women have a statistically significant competitive advantage in the global marketplace and provide greater returns to stockholders. European firms with the highest proportion of women in high-level management positions saw their stock value climb by 64 percent over two years, compared to an average of 47 percent, according to a 2007 McKinsey & Co. study. 

So what? Well, it matters. Government changes when women serve in elected and appointed offices. Several studies have found that women are more likely to choose transparency, a government in public view rather than behind closed doors.

Women are a majority of the population, and fulfill somewhat different roles in society than men — for example, women still do more than twice as much housework and child care as men, according to recent studies at the University of Maryland. The perspective of this majority is missing when women are not part of the policymaking process, whether in the private or public sector. 

“If you take a company in 2009, and it has no women on its board, you’ve got a troubled company,” says Harvey Wagner, business professor at the University of North Carolina. But studies have shown that compared to men, women are less likely to be recruited for appointed and elected office, tend to be more negative in self-assessment of their qualifications to run for office and much more likely to be responsible for child-rearing and housework on top of a career, so that running for office amounts to taking on a third job. So there is work to be done.  =

Margaret Thatcher said, “If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.” You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman. Ask us. We’re right here.

Mrs. Fitzgerald lives in Harrisonburg.