About One Woman One
Vote
What is One Woman One Vote?
One Woman One Vote is
a non-partisan initiative encouraging Edmonton women to vote, and
empowering women to become active participants in shaping the public
agenda on policies and issues that impact their lives.
____________________________________________________________________
Questions
Submitted to YWCA Edmonton’s One Woman One Vote:
Q.
I've
been reading through your 1W1V site and would like to start by thanking
you for this tremendous project. It has already provided me with
a number of resources I will be drawing upon in the very near future.
The
political party that I belong to is very dedicated to the goal of
having a full slate of candidates for this election, ideally half
of whom would be women. While gender equity has always been
a main tenet of our party, we still notice a much larger percentage
of men in attendance at meetings, coffee nights...even signing the
volunteer forms on our web site!
Would
your group be interested in any kind of partnership or advisory
role in this process? We'd love to work with you to get more
women involved in the political process.
Signed,
A
Politically Active Woman
A.
As
a non-partisan initiative of the YWCA Edmonton, I am sure you can
appreciate that One Woman One Vote cannot work specifically with
any one political party in any kind of partnership or advisory role.
All events and activities planned by One Woman One Vote for elections
will remain nonpartisan in nature and multipartisan in invitation.
For example,
in past elections, we hosted multi-party Female Candidate Debates.
At
the YWCA, we believe that there are many issues on which men cannot
speak for the female 49 per cent of the population in Alberta: our
life experiences simply are too different. Whether intended or
not, the systemic discrimination in politics is damaging to women's
prospects--and is a major reason why women too often hesitate to
put themselves forward as candidates for public office.
From
our own research and work with other women's organizations such
as the Canadian Women Voters' Congress, who run the Women's Campaign
School in Vancouver, and Equal Voice an action group whose sole
purpose is electing more women, we have learned that there are issues
for consideration when recruiting women as nominees.
Some
notes from the Equal Voice website: www.equalvoice.ca
The NDP's record for nominating women, if not electing them, is
described as one of the best among the federal and provincial parties.
The NDP policy of freezing nominations until riding associations
prove a genuine search has been made for women or other candidates
from under represented groups, such as visible minorities and persons
with disabilities.
From
the Canadian Women Voters' Congress Campaign School for Women: www.canadianwomenvoterscongress.org
One way to encourage women to run as candidates is to appoint
a well-known woman to head up a special team to recruit women
nominees. The party's provincial/federal leader needs to get personally
involved in encouraging women to run, since we know that women are
too often asked in a perfunctory fashion, insufficient to overcome
their concerns that the present political
environment is hostile to women. The goal should not just be numbers
of women, but qualified women seeking election under the party's
banner in as many as possible of the winnable ridings coming open
at election time.
From the YWCA of the U.S.A.
Institute for Public Leadership: www.ywca.org
Fundraising considerations: problems remain that
are specific to women candidates - it is simply more difficult for
a women to raise money and not because people won't give to a women,
but because the way contributions are generated. Women tend not
to have the large network of successful high-earning peers. Most
women - even highly successful women- are not in the habit of political
giving and do not understand the benefits of their investment. In
addition, women still do not give money in amounts equal to their
male counterparts.
On our website at
www.onewomanonevote.org
spend some time under "news & events", and under Women's
Political Action Forum. Click on Professors Trimble's and Arscott's
presentation about the media's portrayal of women inpolitics and
how strongly the media might play a role (more often negatively
than positively) in a woman's campaign. Professors Trimble and Arscott
also discuss women's typically late entry into
political life, usually after raising children, resulting in less
time in the ranks and often a smaller pool of qualified female
candidates to draw from.
The YWCA One Woman One Vote encourages all political parties to
post their platforms on their websites during the provincial campaign.
We will be encouraging women in Alberta to get involved, get informed,
ask candidates questions on issues of importance to women and their
families, to vote, and take to vote a woman who otherwise might
be unlikely to vote.
Janet
Buckmaster
Coordinator
YWCA
One Woman One Vote
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