Oregon Women do Politics

Right here in Portland, for the past three days, a convergence of women from all over the state is demonstrating that women are interested in and clamoring for public leadership. National Education for Women's (NEW) Leadership Oregon has been holding their 3rd annual conference at Portland State University since Thursday. Twenty-nine women from colleges and universities across Oregon have come to meet with and learn from some of the state's most prominent women leaders, women like Mayor Vera Katz, Governor Barbara Roberts, Judge Betty Roberts, Amanda Fritz, and Goli Ameri, just to name a few. The list of former and current women leaders in the state of Oregon is impressive, but the caliber of women who are attending the conference gives hope to the future of women's leadership. I have been meeting women as young as eighteen who are not only eager to serve and lead, but have already developed skills that distinguish them among their peers at their institutions.

There is evidence that when women run for office they win in relatively proportionate numbers to men, but the figures also show that women often just don't run. There are a whole host of reasons why this is true, not the least of which is the public perception of their responsibility to their families. In fact, some of the veteran women have noted that not much has changed in that regard since they were running in the early '70's.

What's exciting to me is that there are innumerable women out there who want to make their communities, their state, their nation and the world a place where equity and justice are paramount values. We are at the half-way mark in this conference and already I see women whose names I know I will see in the news in the very near future. Someone said that these were dangerous women. I suppose this depends on your perspective, but I would say if by dangerous we mean women who will shake up the status quo, then that is exactly what they are. There is no question that these are women you want on your side, whether it's in business, the sciences, the non-profit sector or just plain good old fashioned politics.

It is definitley a booster shot of motivation to be in their presence and to see what Oregon's future holds.