Forum Discusses Women in Local Politics

On March 31, the Heinz School's Gender Awareness and Action in Policy Club, the Carnegie Mellon Women's Center, and Carnegie Mellon's Office of Gender Issues hosted a forum featuring an expert panel of women who have made it their goal to encourage more women to get involved in local politics. The forum featured Run, Baby, Run, a nonpartisan organization that supports female candidates in campaigns for the Pennsylvania statehouse.

To open on the forum, Professor Linda Babcock noted "The U.S. ranks 69th in the world in terms of percent of female representatives in political office. Germany, Rwanda, Peru, Estonia, and Slovakia all rank above us." All 44 of the state representatives from the 10 counties of southwestern Pensylvania are men.

The forum focused on many different obstacles for women interested in seeking political office, including the need to be prompted to run and the lack of support from political parties.

According to Gloria Forouzan, Director of Run Baby Run "Women run when they are asked to run. Women want to be asked to run. Women run when they think they are qualified to run. For whatever reason, women don’t often feel as qualified for office as men." Forouzan's goal is to get so many women interested in running for political office that she works herself right out of a job.

The forum was coordinated by Heinz School student Natalia Rudiak.