In days of yore, the convening of the Colorado General Assembly was greeted with the cry: “Lock up your daughters! The legislature is in session.”
That precaution is useless today. In the 2008 lineup, your daughters are almost as likely as your sons to be legislators themselves.
Actually, in the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, there are now 21 women Democrats versus 19 men.
Last session, men had a 20-19 edge. Then, Republican Debbie Stafford switched to the Democratic Party. Next, Christine Scanlan was appointed to fill the House District 56 seat (Eagle, Lake and Summit counties) left vacant when Rep. Dan Gibbs went to the Senate to replace Joan Fitz-Gerald, who resigned to run for the 2nd Congressional District seat.
The musical chairs didn’t change the overall gender lineup in the legislature, since the exiting Fitz-Gerald and the incoming Scanlon were both of the female persuasion.
Likewise, Stafford’s party switch didn’t affect the Capitol’s overall sexual politics. But it did leave just five women Republicans in the legislature: Sen. Nancy Spence of Centennial and Reps. Stella Hicks of Colorado Springs, Marsha Looper of Calhan, Ellen Roberts of Durango and Amy Stephens of Monument.
Nine of the 20 Senate Democrats are women, putting the final legislative tally at 65 men to 35 women. That ratio — roughly a third female — has been true for some time. But this year is the first time that women have been the majority of the ruling party in either chamber.
So, what does that mean?
Almost nothing, if past history and the “critical mass” theory hold true.
I noticed decades ago that women were playing a growing role in politics, especially at the local government level. Boulder had the first city council with an actual distaff majority, followed by several other suburban councils and finally Denver.
And nothing happened. In more than 40 years of covering Colorado politics, I’ve never once seen an issue so clearly cast along gender lines that it can be settled by a simple boys-against-girls vote.
Still, gender makes a difference. It may never affect the outcome of a political agenda. But it has a huge impact on what comes onto that agenda in the first place.
When the Boulder city council tipped to women, I interviewed University of Colorado sociologist Elise Boulding, wife of my old economics mentor, Kenneth Boulding, and author of “The Underside of History: A View of Women through Time.”
Elise Boulding introduced me to the critical mass theory developed by a Finnish scholar. Simply put, an all-male body usually promotes a male agenda, including such testosterone-charged items as whether to raise taxes for a football stadium.
When the “first woman” (or the first black, first Latino, first gay or first whatever) integrates that body, there is at least some diversity of viewpoint. But when 99 men debate a subject, then ask Suzie for “the woman’s point of view,” Suzie tends to bend under the burden of representing half the world.
The key change comes when women reach a critical mass — short of a majority but somewhere around a third of the body. Then the women’s status is no longer a novelty and they are free to show the same diversity and creativity that men do in developing their own agendas. That’s when the agenda tends to see fewer football stadiums and more proposals to improve child care or health care. The resulting proposals may pass overwhelmingly, with the male majorities muttering, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
That’s the whole point of diversity, of course — to introduce viewpoints and ideas that would never surface in a monochromatic body.
Obviously, legislative Democrats are well past the critical mass on gender. But Republicans, who once boasted such great women legislators as Betty Ann Dittemore, Ruth Stockton and Norma Anderson, are perilously close to becoming an old boys club. If Colorado Republicans can’t find a way to appeal more strongly to women voters, they risk becoming a permanent minority.
Bob Ewegen (bewegen@
) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post.
