Anna’s Emerge Experience

  • Sep 18, 2017
  • Anna Caliandro

Anna Caliandro is a Smith College student and Vermonter who was an intern with Emerge Vermont during Summer 2017

The 2016 Election felt like a rebuke against women in government. Outstanding and accomplished candidates such as Sue Minter and Hillary Clinton lost, and sexism was both blatant and subtle all the way through. Shortly after the election, I left for a semester abroad and interned for a female Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP). She was a forceful reminder every day of why it’s so important for women to run for and hold elected office. Scotland is ahead of the United States when it comes to gender representation in the national legislative branch, but still hasn’t reached parity- 35.9% of its Parliament is female (vs. less than 20% in the U.S.), and women make up fewer than a third of its local councilors.

However, the MSP for whom I worked was a member of the Scottish Labour Party, which uses mechanisms to ensure that roughly equal numbers of men and women stand for election in each constituency and region. Consequently, Scottish Labour is roughly 45% female. I often wondered what a system like this would look like in Vermont. While there are certainly benefits, it’s hard to imagine such a requirement being successfully introduced here. So how, I wondered, will we reach gender parity in state and local politics?

Over the course of the summer I’ve seen that while a quota system may be far away, maybe we won’t have to wait for such a measure before more gender equity progress is made in politics. Whether they’ve wanted to run for office for years or were recently inspired to run, Vermont women benefit immensely from the training, confidence, and supportive network of women that Emerge cultivates. Not only do Emerge women support and advise one another during their formal training, but they continue to do so as they navigate debates, difficult political situations, and other challenges as their political careers develop.

Emerge gives the women who do its workshops and training program the basic tools they need and instills in them confidence in their own abilities – building a kitchen cabinet; cultivating a varied and expanding network of women who have each other’s backs; messaging; handling tough press questions; understanding campaign finance rules; how to not let sexism get you down; and more.

But what I have come to appreciate most about Emerge is how it teaches women that their own perceived weaknesses may just be their greatest assets. For example, a lack of political experience means an abundance of fresh perspective, or older in years means a more nuanced perspective and deeper community ties. Emerge is shifting common perception away from there being one certain type of person who holds elected office, and instead showing how much our political system benefits from diversity of gender, race, age, economic standing, profession, family status, etc.

What Emerge has shown me, time and time again, is that there’s no such thing as too old, young, nice, inexperienced, experienced, to be in politics. What matters most is hard work, listening, speaking up, and having a desire to serve one’s community.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge how much work there still is to do. Women hold only one out of five select board seats in Vermont, and many selectboards are all-male, entrenched in an “old boys club” way of functioning. (Editor’s note: Anna spent a good portion of her summer going through lists of local elected officials and making phone calls to confirm gender identity of locally-elected board members in Vermont.)

However, there are so many reasons for hope that this uphill battle shouldn’t seem too daunting. For instance, I found in my research that in Vermont, women make up 50% of school boards. Politico recently published a piece, What It Will Take For Women To Win. It refers to sitting on school boards as “the ultimate boot camps” for women entering politics.

I am told that as a school board member, it’s difficult to go to the grocery store without expecting to have a related conversation. Vermont women sitting on school boards already have much of the preparation they need. But, the article points out, not many school board members see their office as a stepping stone for higher political office, although a survey cited in the article points out that women are, with encouragement (and programs like Emerge), open to running for higher office. This is all reason to hope. We already have a lot of amazing women sitting on school boards. With encouragement and a bigger network from avenues like Emerge, maybe many of them will run for higher office, and when women run, they usually win at the same rate as men.

It’s not an easy time for our country. But the biggest thing that Emerge has shown me is that there are so many reasons to be hopeful. Women don’t have to wait for another woman like Hillary or Sue to run for state or national office – we can run, ourselves, now. If you are a woman, please consider running, and encourage another woman to run. If I’ve learned one thing at Emerge this summer, it’s that just about every woman is infinitely more qualified to run than she thinks.

Emerge has one goal: To increase the number of Democratic women in office who are reflective of the incredible diversity of the Democratic party by recruiting, training and providing a powerful network.