Boys' Club: In RI, Only 3 of the Top 22 Democratic Positions Are Held By Women

Boys' Club: In RI, Only 3 of the Top 22 Democratic Positions Are Held By Women

It is no secret that Democrats hold every statewide office, all of the congressional seats, and both legislative leadership positions, but, what has received less attention is that women hold just 13 percent of the top elected and appointed Democratic positions in Rhode Island.

There are no women members of the Rhode Island Congressional delegation and none of the Rhode Island delegation have a female as staff director in Rhode Island.

There are two women who hold general offices of the five positions —Governor Gina Raimondo and Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

And, all but one of the general officers' chiefs-of-staff are male. General Treasurer Seth Magaziner is the only one of the top Democratic officials with a woman serving as chief-of-staff — Kate Brock. The Attorney General currently does not have a chief-of-staff position.

Both Democratic legislative leaders are men as are their chiefs-of-staff.

There is an ever-growing split in the Democratic party in Rhode Island relating to gender. The Women's Caucus has quit the Democratic party.

The women are even more underrepresented when considering that nearly 52 percent of Rhode Island's population are women. The party is facing an ever-growing split between the Democratic Women’s Caucus and the Democratic Party-- which continues to widen.

“Historically, men have always held the power. Systems are designed to favor incumbents and to maintain power for those already holding it. Anyone who challenges that system has to, by design, put significantly more effort into overcoming obstacles’” said Democratic Women’s Caucus Chair Liz Gledhill.

“I can’t speak directly to this, I’m not elected and I don’t have any input into how the electeds hire,” said Cyd McKenna, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Democratic party.

Recently, McKenna had warned the chiefs-of-staff of the Congressional delegation of the "end game" of the newly autonomous Democratic Women's Caucus. 

“A woman has to be willing to sacrifice more time and more energy just to be on a level playing field with their male counterparts, and not every woman can do that. So men win. The patriarchy in Rhode Island counts on people to give up. Change is often slow, but it's there, and if we can build off the momentum we've seen since the '16 election, I think we will see a balance shift,” adds Gledhill.

 

GOP Broke the First Glass Ceilings

Male dominance in the Democratic Party is nothing new. In a different era —  the 1980s and 1990s, it was the Republican Party in Rhode Island that broke the barriers of Rhode Island’s first females.

In 1982, Republican Susan Farmer became the first woman to win statewide office in Rhode Island.

The first and only woman elected to Congress in Rhode Island was Claudine Schneider; America’s first and Rhode Island’s only female Attorney General was Republican Arlene Violet, and Rhode Island’s first woman General Treasurer was Republican Nancy Meyer.

But since that flood of GOP, there have been few breakthroughs. 

Today, both GOP legislative leadership positions are held by men -- the Senate Minority Leader is Dennis Algiere and the House Minority Leader is Blake Filippi.

 

Other Factors at Play

“Given Rhode Island’s political culture, there’s a tendency to conclude that the male-dominated government is a result of gender discrimination on the part of voters, donors, and even the media,” said Jennifer Lawless, Professor of Political Science at the University of Virginia. “The good news is, none of that’s true. Sure, there are sexist voters, sexist donors, and sexist reporters. But systematically, when women run for office, they raise just as much money and garner just as many votes as men.”

Lawless, formerly was a professor at Brown University and was a Democratic candidate for Congress in Rhode Island. 

“But women are less likely to think they’re qualified to run and less likely to be encouraged to do so. As a result, they’re less likely than similarly-situated men to throw their hats into the ring in the first place. Unfortunately, the research I’ve been conducting for the last 20 years indicates that these patterns are stable over time and across generations,” said Lawless.

But Gledhill says the Democrats are blocking women from key organizational positions.

"The [Democratic women's] caucus recently left the state party, but only after months of good faith attempts to be fairly represented. Women in any party should never find themselves begging for fair representation, least of all women within the democratic party, in 2019. Yet that is exactly how the bylaws conflict came to fruition," said Gledhill. "Finally, days before the State Committee bylaws vote, we were offered a token seat on the 150+ person committee -- but not the other four caucuses. At the heart of why we declined the offer: the democratic party is not the authority on which marginalized group deserves representation, either all five caucuses got a seat on the committee, or none of us did."

"The gesture was made to quiet a constituency that was challenging the status quo, not out of a genuine desire to work together.  If ever there was a time to 'pick sides.' it's now. And the women's caucus picked a side when they decided to leave. We are no longer staying ambivalent within a party more interested in maintaining their own institutional power than empowering people to make our state a better place to live. We had to leave our own party to find a side worth fighting for the tenants of the democratic platform, but sometimes the only way to strengthen an organization is to share the power amongst its members, something the caucus does every time it welcomes dissenters and agreers alike into our organization," Gledhill adds.

"I’m not sure that any woman in the general assembly could be accurately described as 'deferring power to men'...The vast majority of them can make a grown man cry and I’m honored to be in their midst," said McKenna.