Eleanor Clift, contributing editor and columnist for Newsweek, visited campus last week to speak about the glass ceiling American women face in running for national public office. That she spoke to a full room, according to Stefanie Peterson’s Oct. 2 article, “Breaking the glass ceiling,” is encouraging and hopefully a sign of the changing tides of public perception. Clift doesn’t foresee a possible crack in the ceiling until the 2008 elections — even that is optimistic.

The number of women elected to public office in the United States is remarkably disproportionate compared to the number of women elected in other countries. In an excerpt from “Does Women’s Representation in Elected Office Lead to Women-Friendly Policy,” from Research-in-Brief, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Amy Caiazza, Ph.D. and study director, reported that women hold 13 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate and 60 of the 435 in the U.S. House. They make up 22.4 percent of state legislatures and are just five of the 50 governors across the country. Currently, the Inter-Parliamentary Union ranks the United States 52nd out of 179 countries in the world for its percentage of women in the national legislature. These numbers place the United States near the bottom of the Western industrialized democracies.

But it’s not because the American public is unwilling to vote for a candidate simply based on gender. There are several reasons why the U.S. government is still dominated by white middle class males. According to “Women Around the World,” a quarterly publication of The Center for Legislative Development, there are attitudinal, cultural and structural barriers hindering women from ever considering running a campaign. Women are still perceived to have “primary” responsibilities as wives and mothers. Societal perceptions regarding the traditional division of labor, where women are bound to perform certain functions provide difficulties for women not only entering the political sphere but also gaining credibility within. Politics is still seen as a no-woman’s land and that the “political space” still belongs to men. Campaigns are notoriously grueling, often ugly and a 24/7 kind of job. A lot of women who are primary caregivers — either for their children or their parents — choose not to make the necessary sacrifice to run for public office.

Most issues of gender inequality can usually be traced back to money. It’s closely related to the discrepancy between the wages of men and women. Running for political office takes an obscene amount of money — more money, my guess is, than most single young women have access to.

And what men would most likely refuse to acknowledge are the unfair and outdated rules of the political game that were established more than 200 years ago. The laws governing elections have changed little since slavery was a given and the vote for women was not. Single-member geographic representation made sense when voters on the eastern shore of Maryland, for example, shared similar concerns. But today voters in carefully shaped congressional districts are so much more diverse. The single-member district psychology doesn’t provide for a lot of choices and discourages the participation of nontraditional candidates, like women.

Critics of females holding national public office might claim they aren’t qualified or interested in civic duty. Maybe that had some merit 40 years ago, before the women’s movement. Maybe that was true before women began earning college degrees.

The good news is that women have successfully taken the ax to the glass ceiling in the realm of local city government. Ames council woman Judie Hoffman reports that Ames has had a female mayor by the name of Lee Fellinger, and at one point in time, the female council members outnumbered the males. Currently, however, there are only two female Ames city council members. Hoffman believes Ames women have had an excellent track record. Those that choose to run are generally elected. So why aren’t any female ISU students stepping up to the plate? I applaud the four gentleman students who are running because Ames has desperately needed student representation in city government.

The state and Des Moines, unfortunately, has some serious catching up to do. No female has ever served as state governor of Iowa, U.S. senator or representative. A female is in the running for mayor of Des Moines for the first time in 152 years but the issue isn’t about overcoming sexism in this upcoming election. From what I hear, she’s tough, smart, strong minded and controversial and a Republican, nonetheless.

Women have earned much status and recognition during the 20th century for their outstanding achievements in the political arena. This nation is not afraid of electing women to Congress at the state or national level or appointing them as national security advisors, yet the ax has not penetrated the thick glass of the Oval Office. This must change and I hope the opportunity to choose between two equally qualified female presidential candidates comes in my lifetime.