Article: Women's representation in Chapel Hill town government

Hi all,

I wrote this piece for a final assignment for a reporting class at Carolina (I'll finally be graduating in 10 days!).

I felt bad it wouldn't really be reaching an audience, and some folks encouraged me to post it here in case anyone is interested. The article is about women's representation in Chapel Hill municipal government and includes historical information as well as interviews with several women public officials/figures, including Penny Rich, Donna Bell, Rosemary Waldorf and Renee Price.

Just thought I'd share! I've followed this blog for several months but have never posted.

Leah Josephson
 

Chapel Hill Town Council member Penny Rich considers her first experience with politics to be a petition drive she coordinated as a seventh grader. The goal of the drive would likely be unimaginable for most public school students today: Rich was fighting for the right to wear pants to school.

At the time, girls were not allowed to wear pants to school, even in cold weather. Rich said female students wore pants under their skirts until they arrived at school and then changed before class, although they weren't allowed to use the bathrooms to change and were forced to literally drop their pants at the back of the classroom.

One day, Rich refused to change out of her pants in the morning and was suspended by the principal. He allowed her to come back to class and made her a deal: if Rich could find 100 people to sign a petition in favor of girls' right to wear pants, he would consider changing the policy.

Rich found more than 500 students, parents and teachers willing to sign, and her first political victory was behind her.

 "I was twelve years old, and I learned a lot about leadership from that experience," Rich said. "If you want to get something done, you sometimes have to do it on your own."

More than 30 years later, Rich has served on the town of Chapel Hill's Technology Advisory Committee and the board of the Orange County Water and Sewer Administration. And she was elected to her first term as Town Council member in 2009.

Rich is just one of a long line of women who have been deeply involved in Chapel Hill municipal government since before women gained the right to vote in 1920. Many of them say their identities as women in politics have shaped their experiences. But historically, fewer women than men have served on Chapel Hill Town Council, and the town has only had one female mayor, Rosemary Waldorf, in its history.

Adelaide Walters was the first female member of the Board of Aldermen (the name of the current Town Council until 1979) and served from 1957 to 1965. Walters was a teacher and then a research assistant at UNC-Chapel Hill. She also was president of the local and state League of Women Voters and leader of the North Carolina Council of Women's Organizations, before her election to Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen.

Walters, who is the namesake of a street in Chapel Hill as well as a community housing project for the elderly and handicapped, was the only woman to serve on the board, which was then a six-member body, throughout her tenure.

No more than two women served on the council, which expanded to eight members in 1975, at any one time until 1984.

The only years in which the council has been comprised of more women than men were 1998 and 1999, whereas men have made up the majority of the council for 48 of the past 58 years.

"In the period of time I've been watching local politics, I think in the typical election cycle there are more men running than women, but most of the women who run good campaigns get elected here," said former Mayor Waldorf.

This pattern will continue after the Town Council meeting on Monday, December 5, at which the newly elected council members will be sworn in. Three incumbents, Donna Bell, Matt Czajkowski and Jim Ward, will be joined by newcomer Lee Storrow, who will replace former council member Sally Greene. Greene chose not to run for reelection this term.

Greene's absence will tip the balance of council so that it is comprised of five men and three women: Bell, Laurin Easthom and Rich.

Of the three mayoral candidates and nine Town Council candidates this election cycle, the only woman running was Bell.

Renee Price, president of the Orange County Democratic Women (OCDW), said she hoped the gender makeup of this election didn't become typical. She said members of her group are dedicated to improving gender representation at the local and state levels.

OCDW is chartered under the Democratic Women of North Carolina, a group that was established in 1961 as a result of Democratic Party women's influential get out the vote efforts for former Gov. Terry Sanford.

Price said she hopes North Carolina women continue their strong tradition of activism, but that they need to get directly involved by running for office now more than ever.

"We have to remember women make up 54 percent of the voting population," Price said. "And with the budget the way it is, women who work in the public sector - at schools, hospitals - are getting hit harder with cuts."

Price has been involved with politics since she helped a friend run for the General Assembly when she lived in New York State and then worked writing legislation for the body. She has lived in Chapel Hill since 1990. She has served on the Human Services Advisory Board and held leadership roles on the Planning Board, the Historic Preservation Commission and the Environment, Health and Safety Committee.

"I can remember quite a few years where administrative assistants would be the only other women in the room, and I would sit next to them," said Price. "There were also times where I was only woman on the board."

Price ran for a spot on the County Commission in 2009 and lost, but plans to run again for a seat. She thinks women offer a unique perspective as public servants.

"Listening to my colleagues, I see that women tend to prioritize more of the social issues," Price said. "We don't forget about the other things, but we think first about things like schools, family and health care."

Rich agrees that women's contribution to local government is unique.

"We're gatekeepers for our families. We take care of our kids, our parents, our pets. We're running households," Rich said. "I think women look at politics as an avenue to get things done, whereas for men it's often a power thing."

Carol Teal, executive director of Lillian's List, a local organization that supports progressive women candidates running for public office in North Carolina, said she looks to recruit women serving in municipal offices to run for the General Assembly or statewide offices.

"Local government is a natural place for anyone to start, but especially women," Teal said. "It's those local issues that really affect our families and our lives, so it's a natural starting place for women. And by serving there, they can begin to see themselves in different roles and higher offices."

Current council members Bell and Rich pointed to challenges women in particular face in deciding to run for public office. Bell has a three-year-old daughter, Olivia, who sometimes has to come with her to meetings when scheduling child care with her partner becomes difficult.

"I just kind of have to steel myself to the fact that she might laugh watching a video on my phone," Bell said. "I can't go into it thinking I have to be very professional - professional meaning no multitasking and no small children."

Bell said there were measures she thought the town could take to make its advisory boards, committees and Town Council more accessible to people with young children, like scheduling meetings at more convenient times, providing child care during meetings and making an effort to create a culture that's more open to children's presence. Bell also noted that the way meetings are conducted could be off-putting to some community members.

"A lot of these boards and commissions are based on rules that people in certain sectors would be more comfortable with. If you don't work in the business world, the rules about how conversation happens and how information is entered can be difficult," Bell said. "I think it's really important we tell people that all of these things are learned, and that just because some people are more used to the process doesn't mean they'll be better."

Rich said efforts had been made by the town to reach out to underrepresented communities to encourage members to get involved. Advisory boards and commissions have typically been unrepresentative of the actual number of women and people of color in the community.

The town hired a new community participation coordinator, Jennifer Phillips, this year to work with the advisory boards to recruit new members and to work on the Chapel Hill 2020 comprehensive plan efforts.

"We are reaching out to people," Rich said. "Every time someone talks to me, concerned about an issue, I encourage them to join a board. You have to react; you can't just sit there and let people do it for you."

Former Mayor Waldorf, who is co-chair of the Chapel Hill 2020 initiative with George Cinciola, said diversity has been a main goal for the members of the comprehensive plan outreach committee.

"That's one of the things we've worked really hard on in these 2020 projects - reaching out to many different populations," Waldorf said.

Waldorf said the committee has made an effort to not only achieve gender diversity but also diversity of ethnicity, community of origin and stage of life.

"We're really trying to bring in people in their teens and twenties and thirties," Waldorf said. "This plan is really for them."

Waldorf said diversity shouldn't just be about counting the number of people of a certain race or gender in a group.

"I think the contributions that women on the Town Council have made in Chapel Hill have been significant," Waldorf said. "But I think it almost has more to do with individual personalities and with ideologies and issues than it does with gender."

Teal said she thinks the decision-making process changes, however, when there are more women and members of other minority groups in a room.

"Women need to be at the table," Teal said. "You get to the point where there's a tipping point: there's enough critical mass that you're never the only woman in a committee meeting, and it changes the conversation."

Rich said she hopes an increasing number of women continue to run for office in Orange County.

"I have a feeling women's leadership roles are dwindling, and I don't know why," Rich said. "Now that we're one woman down on council, it makes me a little nervous. Two years from now, are we going to have the same local politics wonks running for office again?"

Bell, who got directly involved in local politics when friends encouraged her to apply for the Planning Board, said her busy lifestyle is often difficult, but rewarding.

"It's important to me to be Donna Bell, social worker, Donna Bell, Town Council member, and Donna Bell, Olivia's mom," Bell said. "But finding that space of balance is very difficult and guilt-inducing. It's something we just need to start having conversations about so we can show women there are different paths to proceed."