The White House Project’s Go Run New York Kicks Off Friday

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

The White House Project is still accepting applications for this weekend’s New York event. For more information contact Janeen Ettienne at jettienne@thewhitehouseproject.org.

“Women take charge to take care. Meaning, women usually embark on a campaign because of an issue that they have organized around either personally or in their communities,” said Marie Wilson, founder of the White House Project.

She continued, “And when elected, they are more likely to stay in close touch with their constituencies, because the majority of women office holders didn’t get there through high-powered lobbying firms and a blanket of press coverage. They got to their elected office through the grassroots networks.”

Once a year in several states, the White House Project hosts a weekend-long training retreat designed to equip women with the leadership skills they need to run for political office. Go Run provides training in communications, fundraising and campaigning, with a focus specifically on overcoming the unique challenges women have traditionally faced.

This Friday kicks off New York’s Go Run weekend training program. The weekend’s special guests include The Honorable Maria Del Carmen Arroyo, New York City Council Member, District 17; The Honorable Andrea Stewart-Cousins, New York State Senator, District 35; The Honorable Gale A. Brewer, New York City Council Member, District 6; and Uma Sengupta, Democratic District Leader, District 25, Part B, as well as plenty of impactful instructors.

Kristina Goodman, Director of PR and Marketing explained, “Our goal is to equip, inform and inspire women to take their leadership to the next level, either as a community organizer, a candidate, or in their own lives.”

Women in Politics: The Value of Diverse Role Models

According to the organization, “Studies show that men are twice as likely to self identify as political leaders and run early – before the age of 35. With the political pipeline 86% male and 81% white, we need to invite women in to gain fresh perspectives and diverse solutions.” Go Run is part of the organization’s flagship program Vote Run Lead, which, since 2004, has trained over 9,000 women in 18 states.

In 1998, co-creator of Take Our Daughters to Work Day and then-President of the Ms. Foundation Marie Wilson launched the White House Project as a platform to usher more women into the leadership pipeline and put women alongside men in every type of leadership position, with the ultimate goal of getting a women in the White House.

The Glass Hammer has reported on several studies showing that diversity, specifically gender diversity, in top roles helps improve decision making, and according to some research, revenue. Even President Lincoln valued diversity in thought (if not in gender), deliberately choosing cabinet members who fought with one another, and Lincoln himself, politically (as detailed in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals).

Diversity in leadership groups, like the cabinet or boardroom, can provide a wealth of differing experiences and act as a safety precaution against groupthink. Plus, women in leadership roles serve as valuable role models for girls and young women who are just entering the career pipeline now.

The White House Project also offers research and programming for corporate women, like its recent Benchmarking Women’s Leadership Report, as well as panel discussions in NYC and Washington DC – such has “How to Get on a Corporate Board.”

The WHP Case for Diversity

It’s easy to cite the 2008 presidential election as proof that women are now competing equally with men on a national political stage. There’s also the recent data compiled by Bloomberg showing that the 16 women CEOs of companies on the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index earned, on average, 43% more than the men on the list.

The 484 men on the list.

This is the issue – the high-profile successes of a few women can’t overshadow the fact that we are far from gender parity.

Wilson explained, “There is a mythic perception in the US that women are equal to men when it comes to leading in areas such as business, politics, the legal profession, for example. This could not be further from the truth as women are stalled at approximately 17% in the US Congress and there are currently no African American women in the Senate.”

She continued, “To borrow from Marian Wright Edelman, you can’t be what you can’t see. Politics in a sector with an innate high-visibility factor and therefore women leaders in politics have the highest visibility of practically any profession. This then provides automatic inspiration and a positive example of women’s leadership to the most people – men and women can see that a woman can get the job done in a historically male-dominated profession.”

The White House Project draws attention to this issue, and works to better prepare women with leadership potential to take charge.

The organization is about more than politics. It’s about women fulfilling their potential in the corporate arena as well. The organization also provides corporate training programs conveying “strategies and tactics that will allow [women] to run a successful campaign for that promotion, lead position, or long-term career aspiration.”

As described by the critical mass theory, once it stops being an anomaly to see women in leadership positions – whether in politics, corporate boards, or elsewhere – the focus of conversation can move away from their gender and toward the quality of their work – which benefits everyone.