Missing from council table and Senate chamber

Our annual chicas holiday celebration offered the usual amounts of wine, food and side-splitting review of the year.

Our discussion turned serious when we talked about our resolutions for 2012. We all aspired to lofty accomplishments: write a book, run across a state, continue education, control our health and happiness.

I drove home thinking how lucky I am to have such accomplished, intelligent, ambitious women as friends.

It also made me wonder, again, about the woman who made this statement: "Frankly, I am a woman - but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with a woman as president. Women are just... I just don't know if we're cut out to lead."

The comment - from a female homemaker in Sioux City, Iowa - came during an NPR report on Christian conservatives preparing to cast votes in the Iowa caucus. She said she supported Rick Santorum - clearly not Michele Bachmann.

I turned her statement over in my head. She sounded about my age. Could a woman of my generation really believe that women are not cut out to lead?

The women I know, nearly to a person, lead in almost every area of their lives. At work they direct teams and departments. At home they head the family, from keeping the house running to raising the kids to paying the bills. They top their classes.

When I relayed the comment to my posse, they shared my befuddlement.

Perhaps the Iowa woman has no role model to look to. That state has no elected women leaders at the national level; in fact, it has never sent a woman to the Senate or the House and is one of only four states to share that distinction. It has one woman in statewide elected office. Women make up about 21 percent of its state legislature, ranking it 32nd in the nation.

Virginia ranks even lower, according to the Center for American Women in Politics. Our state has no women in national elected office; Thelma Drake left the House of Representatives in 2009. Our state has no women in statewide elected office and has not since 2006. Twenty-seven of Virginia's 140 state legislators are women, or about 19 percent of the General Assembly.

To our north, Maryland ranks among the top 10 states. To our south, North Carolina ranks 28th, with a woman governor and women in five other statewide offices. South Carolina comes in dead last; despite the fact that it has a woman governor, incredibly, not a single woman holds a seat in its state Senate.

Locally, the figures aren't much better. Two of 11 Virginia Beach council members are women. Two of eight in Norfolk; three of nine in Chesapeake; one of seven in Portsmouth. Suffolk has the sole female mayor on the Southside, Linda Johnson, who is also the only female member of the council.

The last presidential election gave women cause to hope that female candidates would no longer be curiosities. Hillary Clinton fought an impressive campaign; Sarah Palin made the GOP ticket. But with Bachmann's departure after her poor showing in the Iowa caucus, America again has a slate of candidates entirely populated by men. Other than Bachmann, women in this presidential campaign season have been 1) Newt Gingrich's many wives and 2) Herman Cain's accusers.

As is true with women in nearly any walk of life in America, Palin, Bachmann and Clinton have all faced judgments based on their perceived level of attractiveness, their apparel, their hairstyles. When I searched the Internet for "women in politics," it turned up a list of "hottest women in politics."

No man-bashing intended here. Some men are capable of considering issues important to women and of making decisions that benefit women. Still, in a country with a population almost evenly divided between men and women, with the smartest, most educated, most accomplished and most free women in the world, less than 20 percent of elected positions are filled by women in every level of government. I know it's not for lack of talent, or qualified candidates.

Where do the talented, qualified women so many of us know fit into the political system? Why have they chosen not to run for office, or failed to attain it if they have? Should I recruit candidates from among the women I know?

Look out, ladies. Next time we're out for a glass of wine, the check you sign might turn out to be a campaign registration form.

Michelle Washington is an editorial writer for The Pilot. Email: michelle.washington@pilotonline.com.