Introduction to Political Science - Essay Example

Order 155518 Introduction to Political Science Introduction We propose to discuss in this paper a topic of vital concern to the democratic polity of western nations as much as to the disciplines of both sociology and political science as to 'why so few women occupy positions of national political leadership in Western liberal democracies', with particular emphasis on the situation in the USA. Democracy undoubtedly is the best form of government. But a meaningful discussion of democracy requires that the word be defined unambiguously so as to avoid confusion. In defining the term we have to take note of the meaning which, in the history of politics, people have commonly attributed to it - a meaning which derives partly from the experience and partly from the aspirations of humankind. The essential test of a democracy has been the belief that the source of political authority must be and remain in the people and not in the ruler. The people have the freedom to determine the nature and content of political power, to place and replace magistrates in positions of political trust, to enact and revoke the laws by which they are governed. In short, it will be self-government; it will be in consonance with and be based upon the development of personality and individuality in every self. (Barker, 1958, p.36). It will be government by the people, not as an unorganized mass but as an organized society of living selves; not in terms of gender, color, ethnicity or other differentiating stipulations in society, but as citizens of the country. It will not rest on mere numbers, but on the quality and value of social life, particularly on the two pillars of Liberty and Equality, which are at once its foundation and its product. To the extent that there is a denial or abridgement of either of these principles to any section of people in a society, to that extent there will be the 'shortfall' in the operation of democracy in that society. And the section of the people deprived of the enjoyment of any of these principles will find it difficult to be elected to positions of political trust. Based on these tenets, we examine why so few women in the USA, as of now, occupy positions of political leadership in the country. Denial of civic equality to women. For much too long a period, American democracy has not been an inclusive political community. Large sections of 'citizens' were excluded from enjoying the basic rights of a citizen, namely the right to vote. For more than 150 years after the American democratic and republican constitution came into existence, American women were denied the right to vote. They secured it only after years of 'struggle' to be recognized as equal citizens of the country along with the men citizens, with the passage of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. This was granted about a century after Frances Wright, a Scottish immigrant had first advocated women's suffrage in a series of lectures in 1826. The 'struggle' to secure equal rights for women in electing the representatives to the national and state legislatures continued sporadically during the first half of the 19th century. In 1840, Lucretia Mott and Margaret Fuller, the author of the book The Great Lawsuit; Man vs. Woman became active in Boston. Efforts to gain various women's rights were subsequently led by women famous in the American feminist movement such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis. In 1869 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association with the object of securing an amendment to the Constitution in favor of woman suffrage. The American Woman Suffrage Association, headed by Lucy Stone, was also formed at this time by those who believed that suffrage should be brought about by amendments to the various States constitutions. In 1890, these two bodies united into one national organization, led by Susan B. Anthony, and known as the National American Woman Suffrage Association. (Flexner 1996). These organizations continued the efforts to obtain an amendment to the Constitution in favor of women suffrage. On January 12, 1915, a bill to this effect was brought before the House of Representatives, but was lost by a vote of 174 against 204. President Wilson made a strong and widely published appeal to the House to pass the bill and it was passed finally on January 10, 1918. However, the Bill failed to pass in the Senate in September 1918 and again in February 1919. Finally in June 1919, it was passed in the Senate and later ratified by the required number of the states in the summer of 1920. The Presidential election of November, 1920, was therefore, the first occasion on which women in all of America were allowed to exercise their right of suffrage. (Flexner 1996). As mentioned above, it has taken more than 150 years after the implementation of its constitution for USA to grant the right to vote to its women citizens. Contrast this to some of the countries which became independent after WW2. India, for instance, became independent in 1948 and her constitution conferred all rights to all her citizens without any exception, although it is a poor and multicultural country par excellence and in all aspects. And within a pace of 20 years her prime minister was a woman. American women in politics According to the census data 50.7 percent of the American population is women (US Census Bureau). Of course, it would be preposterous to think that women representation in public life would be proportionate to the percentage of women in the census figure. But look at some facts: American women have had the right to vote since 1920, but their political roles have been minimal. Only in 1984 did a major party choose a woman, Geraldine Ferraro of New York, to run for vice-president. Jeanette Rankin of Montana was the first woman member of the United States House of Representatives. Hattie Caraway of Arkansas first appointed in 1932 was, in 1933, the first woman elected to the United States Senate. Senator Margaret Chase Smith served Maine for 24 years (1949-73). In 1971 Patience Sewell Latting was elected mayor of Oklahoma City; by 1979 two major cities were headed by women: Chicago and San Francisco. Frances Perkins was the first woman Cabinet member as secretary of labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Reagan set a precedent with his appointment in 1981 of Sandra Day O'Connor as the first woman on the United States Supreme Court. (WIC) Things are changing for the better. The following statistics is found in the "Fact Sheet" of the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). 'In 2007, women hold 87 or 16.3% of the 535 seats in the 110th US Congress - 16 or 16.0% of the 100 seats in the Senate and 71 or 16.4% of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives.' In the states 76 women or 24.1% hold elective executive offices across the country out of the 315 available positions. Of these 9 are Governors and are 11 Lt. Governors. The percentage of women members of the congress has gone up from 3% in 1979 to 16.3% in 2007; and in the state-wide elective executive offices, from 11% in 1979 to 24.1% in 2007. (CAWP). Political hurdles faced by women And yet, most people believe that women have a tougher time winning elections than men do. Most people also believe that women who run for office face bias or discrimination. Politics has long been seen as a man's prerogative and those women who try to 'usurp' it face trouble. Accounts by female candidates of deliberate chauvinism or gender-based questioning add to the belief that women face different treatment because they are women. Given society's treatment of women, the association between politics and masculine activities, and the low numbers of women in office, women do appear to face more obstacles in running for public office, especially at higher levels. Political scientists say that the incumbency advantage is one of the reasons for the paucity of women in office (Jacobson 1978). Women are said to have a tougher time winning elections not because they are women, but because they are not incumbents (Darcy, Welch, and Clark, 1994). The 'concept of pipeline' is another explanation for the dearth of elected women. It refers to the fact that experience in an elected office is considered as providing credentials for other offices. Serving in elected or appointed office at a local level creates credentials for county or state office. For this reason, the number of women who serve in local office is a significant indicator of the number of women who will be seen as convincing candidates for higher office (Thomas, Sue, p. 15). A conservative society American society, contrary to popular belief and foreign perception, is by and large a very conservative society. It is not that women are in bondage; but it is that they still cherish and value traditional mores of conduct and behavior. And on aspect of this conservative value is that women are considered as the 'prime home-maker', much more than men. This belief has engendered a situation in which the vast majority of women have voluntarily left to men most of the matters that are basically outside the immediate domestic circle. And politics for them is a matter removed far beyond the domestic circle and fit for the "man's world". This syndrome might explain why many gifted women shy away from the political arena. In education too, traditional views prevailed well into the evening time of the 20th century. Traditionally a middle-class girl in Western culture tended to learn from her mother's example that cooking, cleaning, and caring for children was the behavior expected of her when she grew up. Even though some tests made in the 1960s showed that the scholastic achievement of girls was higher in the early grades than in high school, the girls' own expectations declined because neither their families nor their teachers expected them to prepare for a future other than that of marriage and motherhood. (WIC) This is a current echo of the views and attitude of Jefferson, the great American constitutionalist towards women. Jefferson believed women's interests were to be confined chiefly to housekeeping and childbearing. Since women were not called upon even to discuss politics, Jefferson saw no reason to give them the vote. Enfranchised women might take it into their heads to run for office. "The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor I.", Jefferson had said. (Miller, 1995, p. 184). When women had been thus excluded from public affairs, there is no need to expend efforts to educate them in any subjects which did not seem likely to be useful in their place as wives and mothers. From the influence of women upon politics he apprehended every evil and feared their meddling in matters of state portended the downfall of the French monarchy (Miller, 1995, p.180). In contrast to the French the American women "have the good sense to value domestic happiness above all other...Our good ladies, I trust, have been too wise to wrinkle their foreheads with politics. They are contented to soothe and calm the minds of their husbands returning from political debate...It is a comparison of Amazons to Angels" (cited in Ellis, 1997, p. 91). Jefferson's ideas have not yet been expunged from the beliefs and conduct of a very sizable chunk of the American male population which exert enormous influence in political decisions. Another reason why women eschew politics may be their innate abhorrence to corruption and associated behavior which they consider as concomitant elements of political conduct. Influence of religion Most western societies are Christian societies, or they have been such societies until the very recent past. The US is still a Christian society. Both by belief and tradition such a society has always given only a subordinate position to women. In many Church Establishments, such as the Roman Catholic Church for instance, only men could be ordained as priests and not women. Only in a very few other Church Establishments have women been 'liberated' or emancipated and given equal status with men in ecclesiastical matters, including being ordained as priests. And beliefs in the church doctrines and traditions are still great and wide spread. In this belief lies one of the main causes for women not being found in leadership positions in political life. Women have been considered from early times, not only intellectually inferior to men but also a major source of temptation and evil. In Greek mythology, for example, it was a woman, Pandora, who opened the forbidden box and brought plagues and unhappiness to mankind. Early Roman law described women as children, forever inferior to men. Early Christian theology perpetuated these views. St. Jerome, a 4th-century Latin father of the Christian church, and Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century Christian theologian, have both assigned only subordinate roles to women in every walk of life. It would seem that very large vestiges of this attitude are still persistent in the US. 'The Christian Right' These attitudes have been buttressed by the emergence and 'intolerance' of what is designated as the 'Christian Right' in the political landscape of the US. Maurice Crawley Vile writes: "The most important recent manifestation of the significance of religion in American politics lies in the revival of fundamentalist Protestant ideas and the involvement of their protagonists in elections and in attempts to influence government policy at all levels". (Vile, p. 34). Jimmy Carter received much support from the 'born again' and 'moral majority' movements, and Ronald Regan and the two Bushes were the "political darlings" or rather the "god-sons" of these groups they are 'intolerant' conservatives to the core, but not to conserve what is good and right in all ages and places, but what is 'evil' and ephemeral. These are a few of the reasons why only a few women occupy positions of national political leadership in the USA. The 'silver-lining' In spite of handicaps mentioned above the trend in the position of women occupying leadership positions in the US has been upward over quarter of a century and over. It may be that it is this trend which might have prompted the statement by Holsti and Rosenau that 'Few predictions about social change seem as safe as the proposition that women will play an increasingly important role in the leadership positions'. (Holsti). And when they come into the political arena "women may bring to the political process a set of beliefs or worldviews that differ systematically from those of their male counterparts." Probably, their prediction and the optimistic expectation of a fresh wind blowing across the political landscape with women in positions of leadership might have been in anticipation of the current scenario in the USA where Senator Hilary Clinton has emerged as a serious candidate for the presidency of the country in the election to be held in 2008. In a Gallop poll of a randomly drawn sample of 1010 adults nation-wide on September 21-24, 2006, 61% think that Americans are 'ready to elect a woman as president' of the country. Another Poll by CNN on December 5-7, 2006, of 1207 adults nation-wide gives more or less the same result of 60% of those polled thinking that Americans are ready to elect a woman as P resident of the country in 2008. Good news for Senator Hilary Clinton, to whom goes our best wishes as much as to others who might be contesting against her. References Barker, Ernest: Reflections on Government. 1958, Galaxy Books, Oxford University Press, New York, 1958 CAWP Fact Sheet, Center for American Women and Politics. Facts on women candidates and elected officials, at www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts.html - Clark, Janet R. Darcy, Susan Welch; Women, Elections & Representation University of Nebraska Press, 1994 Ellis, Joseph J. 1997. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, New York Alfred A. Knopf. Flexner, Eleanor: Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, enlarged edition with Foreword by Ellen Fitzpatrick (1959, 1975; Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1996) Holsti, Ole R and James N. Rosenau The Foreign Policy Beliefs of Women in Leadership Positions The Journal of Politics, Vol. 43, No. 2 (May, 1981), pp. 326-347 Jacobson, Norman, Pride and Solace Pride and Solace: Pride and Solace: The Functions and Limits of Political Theory, University of California Press (1978); reissued by Methuen 1986 Miller, John Chester. 1995. The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995 U. S. Census Bureau, Census 2000, People Quick Facts, at www.quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html Thomas, Sue and Clyde Wilcox, (Ed.) Bottom of Form Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future, Oxford University Press 1998, page 15 Vile, Maurice John Crawley: Politics in USA. Routledge (UK) 1999 WIC Program- Women's History in America at www.wic.org/misc/history.htm/ ************************ Read More