{"id":11858,"date":"2016-05-02T06:19:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T12:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=11858"},"modified":"2016-05-02T06:20:16","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T12:20:16","slug":"montana-ethic-project-why-we-need-more-women-in-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/05\/montana-ethic-project-why-we-need-more-women-in-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Ethic Project: We need more women in government"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Williams\"<\/a>

Hugh Carey<\/p>

Carol Williams talks about the need for equal representation of women in government.<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the ninth\u00a0chapter of the 32-part video series \u201cThe Montana Ethic Project.\u201d This chapter features Carol Williams speaking on “The Imperative for Female Governmental Participation.”<\/p>\n

Williams, a Democratic state senator from Missoula between 2004 and 2012, rose to become the first female minority and majority leader in the history of the Montana Senate.\u00a0You can watch the whole video below. Here is how it begins:<\/p>\n

“In the early ’80s we had a very big scare of what the nuclear buildup in both the Soviet Union and in the\u00a0United States could bring. It was a very tense time. What I noticed after many months of paying\u00a0attention to the nuclear debate issues was that almost nobody was ever on television expressing an\u00a0opinion of a woman.<\/p>\n

“They were all generals and colonels and scientists. But they were all men.<\/p>\n

“I got to talking with a few friends and we decided that it would be really interesting if we could start a\u00a0group that would be just for women to explain nuclear technology and the importance of the issue in\u00a0terms of everyday concerns around the kitchen table, of how it would affect your education and lack of\u00a0spending on schools because we\u2019re spending all the money on nuclear weapons.”<\/p>\n

Here is another, edited excerpt from Williams’\u00a0presentation:<\/em><\/p>\n

“We have a lot of work to do. The challenge I think is getting more women to run, getting more\u00a0women elected. To do that we have to reach young people. We have to make it clear that we still only\u00a0make 77 cents of the dollar that men make; there are still issues of choice. All of those things we\u00a0thought we were going to solve in the ’60s haven\u2019t gone away. It\u2019s taken longer than we thought. It\u2019s\u00a0going to be the challenge for those of us who are still involved to reach out more to younger people and\u00a0bring them into making the same kinds of sacrifices that we\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n

“Because we aren\u2019t going to have equity in this world, we are not going to have real democracy in\u00a0America, we are not going to have justice in America, until we have equality in America.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s not because women are smarter, it\u2019s not because women are better. Women lead differently.\u00a0Women have different ideas. And with the challenges we have in this century, we cannot change\u00a0America and make it better without everybody at the table, everybody putting their best foot forward,\u00a0and everybody making a sacrifice to meet this challenge.”<\/p>\n