The matriarchy up north

[Shana A]

The matriarchy up north
By Renee Loth
April 30, 2009

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/04/30/the_matriarchy_up_north/ 🔗

What could be causing this unprecedented turn in Granite State politics? Here's one idea: women.

Since January, the New Hampshire Senate has been making history as the first majority female legislative body in the country: Thirteen of its 24 members are women. Overall, the New Hampshire Legislature is 37.7 percent female, just a fraction behind Vermont (37.8 percent) and Colorado (38 percent). But New Hampshire also has women in leadership: a woman House speaker, a woman Senate president, and a woman majority whip. The congressional delegation is 50 percent female, including one of only 17 women in the US Senate. It's as if there was a bloodless coup of the state's political establishment in November, and women were the avatars of change.

Cynics suggest that it is precisely because New Hampshire's Legislature is part time and virtually unpaid - members earn $100 a session, plus commuting expenses - that women are allowed to compete for legislative seats that aren't as prized as they are in, say, Massachusetts. It's just volunteerism, like rolling bandages. Why not let the women have it?

[tekla]

I'm sure a lot of idle rich women at that.

[NicholeW.]

Women see the world as a web of relationships. They are more communitarian and less individualistic. They are less ideological and more practical. It's hard to imagine a better set of qualities for solving the intricate problems that face our world.

Well, maybe, but there are the examples of Michelle Bachman, Marilyn Musgrave. Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Sarah Palin to name some of the most visible examples of the converse of that.

Nice if it's true in NH, though. Wow, imagine Concord or Manchester becoming like, San Franciscos of New England!!! 🙂

Nichole

[transheretic]

More women in legislature......and not a single vote in favour of trans civil rights protection, hmm the failure of trans people to engage productively with feminism is a major problem isn't it?  Perhaps those normborn women don't like being called cis-privileged.

[Shana A]

Nice if it's true in NH, though. Wow, imagine Concord or Manchester becoming like, San Franciscos of New England!!! 🙂

Nichole

Unfortunately I think it will be a while before that happens. Just read the comments in the Union Leader...

Z

[tekla]

Hell, read anything in the Union-Leader, not exactly flaming libs there eh?

[Shana A]

Hell, read anything in the Union-Leader, not exactly flaming libs there eh?

very true!

Z