I was watching and old episode of the Simpsons yesterday, “Mr. Lisa goes to Washington.” It was aired in 1991 and Lisa goes to DC, there is a line in the show where a senator says “One day you might even grow up to be a senator, there are women senators you know.” To wit Lisa replies, “I know, there are two, I checked.” That made me sit up, I knew there were more female senators now, but didn’t know how many. Out of 100 senators 17 are female. In over twenty years we went from 2, to 17. Now the growth rate is tremendous and I applaud that, but when you think about it, 17 out of 100 isn’t that many, especially if you consider that there are more women in the population than men (marginally, sure.)
So then I decided to check and see how many minorities are currently serving in the senate, and there are only 4! Two Asians and two Hispanic, the last African American was voted out in 2010, and the one before that was elected president (not too shabby) in 2008.
I could also tally up the numbers in the house, but I think it’s easier to get elected into the house than it is into the senate, and a brief look tells me that even so, percentage-wise the minority and female representation is shockingly low. Now one might argue that it doesn’t matter what someone’s race or gender is, that all that matters is if they can do the job well, and I agree with that, but do you really think the job is being done well? Do you really think the interests of minorities and women are being championed in the senate? When complaints are raised the number of complainers are so small that they have no voice. This is a problem.
I have no solution, other than to ask more women and more minorities to enter into politics. I ask that you don’t play the game but that you work hard to do right, sure it’s not the fastest way to get elected, but at least if you are elected you will do a better job for your country. There is a young woman I know who is an undergrad, I have been encouraging her to study law because I want her to someday enter politics. She is someone I would vote for in a heartbeat, we need fresh blood like this. We need to encourage the youth to pick up the mantle and make this country better.
In related news, the first female 4-star general was named. That’s just awesome! Plus, she has one of the coolest names ever “Janet C. Wolfenbarger.” Discussion of this promotion brought about this post’s title, JRD Skinner said she kicked the glass ceiling in the belly :)
This also brought up another amazing lady, Grace Murray Hopper, Computer legend and Rear Admiral (granted she retired a Commander and they continued to promote her after the fact because of all she contributed to technology).
Blurb stolen from Wikipedia:
Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navyofficer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language.[1][2][3][4][5] She conceptualized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages. She is credited with popularizing the term “debugging” for fixing computer glitches (motivated by an actual moth removed from the computer). Due to the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as “Amazing Grace.” The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) was named for her, as was the Cray XE6“Hopper” supercomputer at NERSC.