{"id":4503,"date":"2011-07-20T11:54:31","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T15:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=4503"},"modified":"2011-08-08T13:35:39","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T17:35:39","slug":"off-the-sidelines-into-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/07\/20\/off-the-sidelines-into-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the sidelines, into politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday\u2019s <em>New York Times<\/em> featured an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/07\/20\/us\/20iht-letter20.html?ref=kirstengillibrand\">article about Kristin Gillibrand\u2019s advocacy for women<\/a> in government. As part of her campaign for reelection in 2012, Gilibrand started Off the Sidelines, a group that on its website says it wants women to realize \u201cthat they can make a difference, with their vote, with their advocacy, with their candidacy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Party politics aside, the NYT article cites some alarming statistics about women\u2019s participation in government. The percentage of women in Congress dropped last year for the first time in three decades. Women hold only 16% of seats in Congress. Only 6 of the 50 states have female governors.<\/p>\n<p>Gilibrand is a different breed of politician than Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin. Instead of selling you a certain brand of pioneer feminism, Gilibrand is calling for a movement. Sure, it\u2019s part of her campaign. But it\u2019s also an astute recognition of a chronically under-recognized problem: there\u2019s a glass ceiling for women in politics. With phone hackings and debt ceilings dominating the national stage, plus the widely held belief that feminism is a movement failed and project accomplished, discussion of those particular gender barriers is often shunted aside.<\/p>\n<p>Gilibrand isn\u2019t immune to the glass ceiling either.\u00a0 In the article, she says she encountered embedded sexism when she was well along in her law career. And despite her many accomplishments, Gilibrand is widely recognized by Senator Harry Reid\u2019s infamous descriptor: she\u2019s \u201ca hottie.\u201d\u00a0 But Gilibrand\u2019s also \u00a0been getting a lot of press lately. I\u2019m glad, because I think she\u2019s right to issue a call to action to women. So off the sidelines, ladies\u2014it\u2019s time to get in the arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday\u2019s New York Times featured an article about Kristin Gillibrand\u2019s advocacy for women in government. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}