Winning the Future for Women in Politics and Service

The Huffington Post published a blog yesterday written by Ola Ojewumi, the founder of Sacred Hearts Children's Transplant Foundation and Project ASCEND. The blog, entitled 'Winning the Future for Women in Politics and Service' addressed the lack of female political leadership in this country. She celebrates the efforts of the Women's Information Network in addressing the obvious need for change. The organization is celebrating their 25th anniversary, with a whopping membership of 1,250.

I've included an excerpt from the article below:

"America the beautiful. The land of milk, honey and immense opportunity. In spite of our nation's status as one of the greatest world powers, we have yet to fully address one key issue -- the lack of equal representation of women in positions of leadership. Though women represent 51 percent of the population, we only comprise 18% of the United States House of Representatives and Senate. These statistics are a sad reflection of our society's difficulty with viewing women in strong positions of authority. This is evident in the media's treatment of women candidates for public office, including Wendy Davis and Hillary Clinton. There is a problem when public officials are chastised for their appearance and shamed for choosing to pursue an education or career instead of devoting one's life solely to motherhood.

As a country, we are failing in our efforts to include women in national and local politics while subjecting politicians to insufferable forms of sexism. In the same fashion that our foremothers (i.e. Susan B. Anthony, Gloria Steinem, Ellie Smeal) used activism to attain voting rights and reproductive justice, we must return to these grassroots methods to dismantle sexist political institutions."