That’s what Joel Kotkin of Forbes.com thinks:

An analysis comparing the results of the 2008 election and the most recent Gallup surveys with data by demographer Wendell Cox shows a remarkable correlation between the states and regions with the highest proportion of childless women under 45 – the best indicator of offspring-free households — and the propensity to vote Democratic. …

At the top of the list, with 80% of its women under 45 without children, stands the rock-solid blue District of Columbia. Just behind that taxpayer-financed paradise the six states with the highest percentages — Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Vermont and California — also skew Democratic. In each of these states the percentage of childless women exceeds 55%.

Interesting. What do you think?

(chart: Pew Research Center)

By David Klepper

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Susan Farmer was the first woman elected to statewide office in Rhode Island when, in 1982, the voters picked her to be the state’s Secretary of State. It was a job female candidates had sought before.

There was something about that word ‘secretary’ that made people more comfortable with the idea of a woman,” she recalled with a laugh. “I guess they thought it was really a secretarial job.”

Times have changed in the Ocean State. When Gov. Lincoln Chafee took office in January, women held 15 percent of the positions filled by the governor. Of nearly 500 appointments made by Chafee so far, 45 percent are women.

Women are breaking political glass ceilings elsewhere in the state, too. The state’s education commissioner and lieutenant governor are women. Teresa Paiva Weed is the state’s first female senate president. Treasurer Gina Raimondo is considered a political up-and-comer who so far has led efforts to curb the state’s runaway pension costs.

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The Daily Beast caught up with two Ivy League presidents – UPenn’s Amy Gutmann and Providence’s own Ruth Simmons of Brown University – and asked each one to “grapple with what’s holding smart, young women from seizing leadership positions” on elite college campuses in the United States.

Here’s some of what Simmons, who took the helm at Brown in 2001, had to say:

Ruth Simmons, the president of Brown University, acknowledges the power of “residual biases” and barriers, but suggests that the gender divide is also a product of cultural norms.

Simmons says women at Brown “participate with a sense that they belong.” But she adds that women are “much more likely to accord the spotlight to others.”

“Women are socialized to be compliant, that’s what pushes us along,” says Simmons, who has a warm, but no-nonsense demeanor. “We go to class. We sit in our chairs. We take notes. This compliant behavior allows us to be successful, it’s true, but the compliant personality is not the personality that wants to control. The compliant personality wants approbation.”

The full article is here.

(photo: Brown University)

Can we?

I received a number of interesting responses to last week’s post about how women are faring in Rhode Island politics. The issue is clearly on the minds of a lot of people out there.

I asked Eyewitness News analyst Arlene Violet, who Rhode Islanders chose back in 1984 as the nation’s first female attorney general, for her thoughts on the issue. Here’s what she had to say:

Obstacles for women in politics are both self-made and externally made. Many studies, including a recent analysis from Rutgers University [pdf], conclude that women are much more likely to think they might not be qualified for a position, whereas men normally assume they can do the job. Self-assessment, therefore, may preclude a woman from running for office.

While all candidates dislike asking for money for the campaign, women, I think, have an unconscious bias. Asking for money has an unsavory subtext historically for women. Cultural norms still inhibit folks from contributing to women. For example, in a dual college-educated household, if money is going to be sent to an alma mater, it is more likely that the male’s college will get the family donation rather than the woman’s.

While this is changing with more women earning their own money, there still is a cultural lag and this impacts women’s ability to raise money. Typically, women don’t have the same “old boy” network where they can meet potential contributors like country clubs, out on the golf course, etc., since they normally are still primarily doing the bulk of work at home as well as at their workplaces. Again, this is changing, but still a little too slowly.

Two correspondents also pointed me to a new initiative by the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island called the Rhode Island Government Appointments Project, or RI-GAP. (It’s modeled after a similar initiative in Massachusetts.)

The statistics cited by Marcia Coné, the Women’s Fund’s executive director, are striking. Women make up 52% of the U.S. population. Nationally, they hold 31% of state cabinet and high-level government positions. But in Rhode Island, they hold only 15% – half the national average.

RI-GAP’s steering committee plans to encourage the next governor to make sure women make up at least 30% of his appointees. And he sure will have a lot of people to appoint, judging by this list RI-GAP’s organizers put together.

(image credit: Bakersfield College)

Last Thursday, I started jotting down notes about how one under-the-radar story coming out of the primary election was an advance made by women, with both major parties nominating female candidates for lieutenant governor – Democrat (and incumbent) Elizabeth Roberts and Republican Heidi Rogers.

In light of subsequent events, I’m glad I was too busy to finish the post that day.

After Rogers’ sudden exit from the race last Friday, WRNI’s Scott MacKay put up a provocative post of his own on the same topic. “Why don’t we just put up a sign on Route 95 that says: Entering Rhode Island We Don’t Want No Women in Government,” he wrote. “What else is one supposed to believe about the latest maneuver by the usual gang of political insiders to toss out Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, the lone woman in statewide office?”

Despite the Rogers imbroglio, though, I’m not as pessimistic as Scott – or at least I see a case for why the glass is half-full rather than half-empty.

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