<p><strong>W</strong>omen gained the right to vote 100 years ago, but an expert says they still have a ways to go in terms of political power.</p><p>Laura Merrifield Wilson, a political science professor at the University of Indianapolis, visited Franklin Wednesday night to talk about how far women have come in the political sphere since earning the right to vote a century ago.</p><p>A small crowd gathered at the Historic Artcraft Theatre in downtown Franklin for her presentation, “Have We Come a Long Way, Baby?” and to discuss the upcoming election in Johnson County, where there are seven women on contested ballots.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery<p>Merrifield Wilson opened the presentation talking about the first time she watched the movie “A League of Their Own” as a little girl, and she realized that women were capable of doing the same things as men, she said.</p><p>“It got me thinking about women in positions of power and this idea of people that looked like me doing things I didn’t know people that looked like me did. So, that year for Christmas, I asked my parents, I wanted books about women in politics,” Merrifield Wilson said.</p><p>Her parents bought her books mostly about first ladies Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan and Eleanor Roosevelt, she said.</p><p>“It dawned on fifth-grade-me that these weren’t what I was asking for. It was exactly what I asked for, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted women who were in the elected offices … I didn’t want the women who were first ladies; I wanted the women who were presidents,” Merrifield Wilson said.</p><p>She flipped to a slide with pictures of all 45 U.S. Presidents and asked the audience, “Where are all the women?”</p><p>Women make up half of the U.S. population, and roughly, since the 1980s, have outvoted men in elections, yet women are not seen working in politics often, Merrifield Wilson said. In Congress, 23.7% of the body is made up of women, and in Indiana, 25.3% of the state legislature are women, she said. There has never been a woman elected president, and Indiana has never had a woman as governor.</p><p>In recent years though, women have “cracked the glass ceiling” of politics, Merrifield Wilson said. From Sarah Palin running for vice president in 2008, to Hillary Clinton running for president in 2016, women have made strides. But it’s not enough, she said.</p><p>And although Indiana has never had a woman as governor, several state executive offices are held by women, including lieutenant governor, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction.</p><p>“We’ve put a lot of cracks in that glass ceiling, but it still exists. It is certainly still there,” Merrifield Wilson said.</p><p>She went on to talk about the four main roadblocks women face when trying to run for office, including social status, economic gaps, and institutional and political barriers.</p><p>For years, women have been expected to handle domestic responsibilities at home, such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of their children, Merrifield Wilson said. That social aspect makes running for office more challenging for women, she said.</p><p>“You have to be responsible for all of these other things, and then oh, gosh, now you got to go to a party meeting. And have you talked to your fundraisers? Have you gotten those signs up?” Merrifield Wilson said. “That’s kind of a lot, and you also probably have a day job.”</p><p>Funding a campaign is also expensive, so the wage gap between men and women plays a role, she said.</p><p>Additionally, there are institutional and political barriers, such as the lack of term limits in some state legislatures and in Congress, which leads to less diverse governing bodies, Merrifield Wilson said. And the idea that “politics are too dirty” for women is another way they are discouraged from running, she said.</p><p>Studies have shown that when women do run for office, they win just as often as men, but women do not run as often because of the various roadblocks, Merrifield Wilson said.</p><p>Women should be encouraged to run for office, she said. In a study from the book “It Still Takes a Candidate to Win,” the authors asked both men and women if they considered running for office. Most of the time, the women had to be asked several times before deciding to run compared to men.</p><p>“You had to hear multiple times, ‘Hey, I think you’d be great. Hey, you should consider. Hey, have you ever thought of?’ And that was when women started to say, ‘Oh, yeah, maybe I would,’” Merrifield Wilson said.</p><p>There is hope, she said. In 2018, a record number of women ran for public office. That does not mean a spike in women in elected offices will happen overnight, but Merrifield Wilson expects to see more and more run in each election cycle over the next decades, she said.</p><p>“It’s not just inevitable. Progress doesn’t just happen. We have to move forward with this movement and what women fought so hard for well over 100 years ago,” she said. “Truly, generations of women who died before they ever got to see their great-great granddaughters have the right to vote.”</p><p>Two candidates running locally, Angela Elliott and Amanda Stevenson-Holmes, spoke about their experiences running for office after Merrifield Wilson’s presentation.</p><p>Elliott is a Democrat running for Indiana House District 93, and Stevenson-Holmes is running for an at-large seat on the Johnson County Council — the only Democrat in a county race.</p><p>Both women related to the roadblocks Merrifield Wilson discussed. Elliott said she had to be asked several times before she decided to run for office.</p><p>“I’m doing it to bring more balance to our state legislature because a supermajority isn’t good for anyone. And I’m doing it to bring in more women,” Elliott said.</p><p>She has also faced great financial burdens along the way, she said.</p><p>Stevenson-Holmes saw a lack of political diversity on the seven-member Johnson County Council and among the Republican candidates running for the at-large seat, she said.</p><p>“They all looked the same, they all sounded the same … and I was like, enough is enough, and threw my hat in the ring,” she said. “As far as I know we’re still in a democracy where voters still get a choice to vote. I wasn’t going to hand over the election on a silver platter.”</p><p>One local race for the Statehouse has two women on the ballot, representing both parties. Republican Michelle Davis and Democrat Cindy Reinert are running for Indiana House District 58, which for three decades was held by retiring Rep. Woody Burton. Now, the county will see a woman take that seat next year either way the election goes.</p><p>Elliott said that is inspiring.</p><p>“We have two women in the community on either side of the aisle that are taking that step and making the effort to run. I think we’re really lucky in Johnson County,” Elliott said.</p><p>The best advice Elliott and Stevenson-Holmes could offer women who want to run for office is to “just do it,” they said.</p><p>“We need to start back at talking to our daughters about, ‘You can do this. This is something you can do,’” Elliott said. “If women run, they win, so we just need to let girls see more women run and win.”</p>
