A New Conversation
By Ember Reichgott Junge,
former Minnesota State Senator
Mar. 10, 2005
What an honor to be invited back to St. Olaf College -- my alma mater and a place that I love dearly. Just last week, my Ole roommate and I went to the St. Olaf Choir concert in the Twin Cities. Thirty years after seeing the choir for the first time, we still cried and hugged during "Beautiful Savior."
My love of politics started at St. Olaf College. I was never political in high school, but then, interim of my senior year, I went to Washington D.C. I thought it would be an easy political science credit within my pre-law major. It turned out to be much more than that; it changed my direction in life.
That interim, I interned in the office of the former U.S. Senator Walter Mondale. Not only did the political bug bite me at a young age as a Democrat, but also Sen. Mondale was chairing the Select Committee on Women and Children.
Some of the sociology courses I took at St. Olaf had already opened my eyes to issues I could hardly fathom, like domestic violence, but in the Washington hearings, I heard stories from abused women and children first-hand. It had a huge impact on me. Prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault was the key issue that motivated me to run for office. It is no coincidence that my first bill on the senate floor was a bill to prevent domestic violence, as well as one of my last bills over 18 years later.
As I continued my career in politics, I kept running into Oles. When I was sworn in to the Minnesota State Senate 9 years after graduation, I was taken aback when one of the Republican members of the first-term senate class was none other than my "head resident" when I lived at Kittlesby. My roommate and I were not always angels, so this caused me concern, especially since he was a rising leader in the opposing party. Well today, this leader is a dear friend, a Lutheran pastor, a Democrat, and the Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Dean Johnson. But Dean is not the only member of the Ole Political Power Punch at the capitol. Republican Speaker Steve Sviggum graduated from St. Olaf in '73 and Republican House Majority Leader Erik Paulsen graduated in '87. They are the top two leaders in the House. Now you know why they serve lutefisk in the capitol's cafeteria.
As the only female member of the Ole Political Power Punch, I have great hopes for today. My hope is that there will be many more women, like you, who become part of the Ole Political Power Punch in your state or your nation.
Today, my life is devoted to creating a new conversation about women's leadership. Women will change the world if we value our leadership and value the qualities we bring to the table. I am convinced that when women leaders stand beside male leaders, we will move forward together and everyone will benefit.
A few years ago, I was door knocking in my district. An 11-year-old boy answered the door. "Hi! I'm your state senator," I said, "Is your mom home?" He frowned at me, ran to the back of the house and yelled to his mother, "Hey mom, there's a woman at the door who thinks she's a state senator!"
There are a lot of 11-year-old boys, and girls, out there and they need to see women leaders. Right now, they really don't, at least not in the political realm. Minnesota has yet to see a woman as governor or attorney general and we've only had two Minnesota women elected to Congress.
There have been some successes. Washington state is the first state to both have a woman serving as governor and a woman in each U.S. Senate seat. In Arizona, a woman governor actually succeeded another woman governor for the first time.
But if you think we've come a long way, we really haven't. I suggest a great book, Closing the Leadership Gap by Marie Wilson. This book highlights many of the obstacles women leaders face. For example, in 2002, the White House Project did a survey of guests invited to speak on the Sunday morning national network shows. They found that men were invited as guests 9 times more often than women. It wasn't that there weren't women leaders. Sen. Patty Murray was Chair of the Senate Campaign Committee. Imagine her surprise when at the height of the campaign, she watched her male predecessor interviewed as the expert.
It is important for women leaders to be part of this new conversation for two reasons; research shows we bring different priorities to the table, and we build bridges across divided views. What I'm about to share can be applied in business, academia, or anywhere.
When I was elected to the state senate in 1983, there were 12 women in the senate. As our critical mass grew -- there were 22 women when I left the senate in 2000 -- something very profound happened; issues once considered "women's issues" were now everyone's issues. They were on everyone's campaign literature -- health care, early childhood development, crime prevention. Women changed the agenda of the Minnesota senate.
Here's an example: In 1991, the public safety agenda was centered around putting people in jail. Sen. Jane Ranum, a prosecutor, wanted to change that. She and other women leaders organized a senate forum on how children are impacted by abuse from trusted adults. We heard from survivors as well as perpetrators who, with repentance, told their personal stories. They had been abused as children, their cries often ignored. There wasn't a dry eye in the senate chamber. These speakers told us first-hand that if we didn't invest in children, we'd never have enough money to build all the prisons we'd need.
The result? For every $1 the Senate proposed for locking people up, $4 was proposed for crime prevention. In the end, it was a huge victory since double the new prison money was actually passed into law for crime prevention. Equally important, the name of the Crime Committee was changed to the Crime Prevention Committee. And a new committee was born: the Early Childhood Development Committee. This monumental change showed the power of one woman senator. Imagine the power of one, plus one, plus one.
Research shows that once women reach 15 percent of a policy making body, legislation important to women and children is far more likely to pass. The U.S Congress today is only 14 percent women.
I have seen bills, where if women had been the majority of the state legislature, the outcome would have been vastly different. That was true on the issue of lowering the DWI threshold in Minnesota from .10 to .08. Women legislators supported that bill by nearly 60 percent. Men supported it by an average of 39 percent. More men serve than women, so the bill did not pass for many more years -- not until just last year.
This brings me to my second point. Women in legislative bodies often work together. The U.S. Senate women meet regularly across party lines. How refreshing in this age of divisiveness.
2001 research by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University shows that women legislators are perceived by both genders to bring more civility to the legislature, particularly in conduct of legislators on the house or senate floor. Women have an impact in making the process more public. Women are also thought to be more inclusive. Lawmakers of both genders agreed that women lawmakers make a difference to the extent of which the economically disadvantaged have access to legislatures and the extent of which legislatures are sympathetic to the concerns of racial and ethnic minority groups.
We need this voice in our policymaking bodies at all levels. But what I've finally realized in just the last few months is that we need this voice everywhere. It is time to create a new conversation -- a conversation about women's leadership and the great leadership qualities women bring. Through this conversation more of you will become governors and U.S. Senators. More of the issues important to women and children will pass into law. Our priorities will change. And everyone will benefit.
That's why I've started two new radio shows called Women on the Move. I'll be honest. It took me a while to understand the power of this new conversation. Ever since I left the legislature about 4 years ago, I've been trying to sell our local radio stations on this show. They didn't bite. That's how hard and unique this conversation is. Then unexpectedly, VoiceAmerica.com asked me to host a live Internet radio program. At first I thought, "Why would I do that? They aren't paying me."
What I realized is that any woman anywhere in the world could potentially hear my radio show. It took me a while to realize this is not about me. It's not about a paycheck. It is about creating a conversation that desperately needs to take place. So we've raised a start-up sponsor and we are on our way to creating a new, much needed conversation about women.
Today when we do our radio show live from Buntrock Commons you can hear it today and every Thursday hereafter at 1 p.m. on www.voiceamerica.com.
I ask you to be a part of that conversation wherever you go -- with your families, in your classrooms, with your work colleagues. Take the risk and be involved; run for office; help another woman take the risk. Remember it is all about the power of one, plus one, plus one.