In Good Hands: Remarkable Female Politicians From Around the World Who Showed up, Spoke Out and Made Change
In Good Hands: Remarkable Female Politicians From Around the World Who Showed up, Spoke Out and Made Change
“I am often asked how it feels to be a female politician. I look at it this way: I am not a politician because I am female, but because I am Juliana.” She says it’s important for women not to put limits on themselves or let the challenges of being female in a system that is predominately male stop them from engaging in politics. She says that if you are in politics, those who oppose you “will call you names, whether you are a man or a woman.” It just comes with the territory, so she doesn’t take it personally and urges other women considering politics not to let that stop them, either. As a woman, Juliana says, “if you have a contribution to make, you go for it!”
If every citizen had an opportunity to change society, there would be few, if any, who would say it’s perfect as it is. Profiling 19 diverse female politicians from around the world who were elected at different levels of government, Stephanie MacKendrick demonstrates to readers that, regardless of background, women should run for office. By exploring the backgrounds, strengths, successes, and missteps of these 19 female politicians, readers will learn they don’t need to be perfect to win a seat, regardless of whether it’s on a school board, in the House of Commons, or somewhere in between.
Learning why each female decided to run will get readers thinking about the issues important to these politicians and themselves and sets readers up for learning more in “Part 2: The Playbook” and “Part 3: The Deep Dive” about the steps required to successfully run for office. “Part 2: The Playbook” covers every aspect of running a successful campaign from identifying the issues that interest the reader and identifying the level of government that has jurisdiction over those issues to the steps and actions required to putting together a winning team and successful campaign plan. The sections on networking, finding a mentor, and moving from focusing on weakness to focusing on what someone has to offer are helpful regardless of the reader’s career path but have special importance in the political realm.
While MacKendrick is successful in presenting a diverse selection of female politicians and the barriers they faced both running for office and during their time in office, there are a few cringe-worthy moments, as in the following three examples:
* Having talked about Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada, choosing to not use her husband’s surname when running for her first elected position on a school board, a seat her husband was also running for, MacKendrick later mentions that Beth Fukumoto, a member of the Hawaii House of Representatives, found that marrying someone already involved in politics helped her political career. While it may be true that marrying an established politician may help an aspiring politician, MacKendrick’s highlighting how it may have helped Fukumoto takes away from her actual qualifications. Fukumoto’s connection to people in power could have been used by MacKendrick to strongly emphasize that political connections, in general, are helpful, In this instance, MacKendrick misses an opportunity to direct the reader to the section on finding a mentor.
* After MacKendrick’s describes how Kyrsten Sinema went from homelessness to United States Senator, readers learn that she “does things on her own terms”, first by wearing colourful clothing. In general, people spend too much time talking about how female politicians dress, thereby taking time away from their achievements, and MacKendrick’s doing so here takes away from Sinema’s incredible story.
* It's unfortunate that the only mention of Hillary Clinton is imbedded in Kirsten Gillibrand’s chapter, describing on one page the advice Bill Clinton gave her, and ending with how Gillibrand believes Bill Clinton should have stepped down from his presidency after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Readers would benefit more from learning how Hilary Clinton managed her political career after the affair became public rather than a statement that feels more editorial than educational.
“Part 2: The Playbook” contains valuable information, broken into three sections: “1: Getting Yourself Prepared”, “2: Getting Started: Your 12-Step Campaign Plan Workbook”, and “3: The Deep Dive”. Sections 1 and 2 would benefit from some reorganizing, reducing redundancy in the two sections, and ensuring readers don’t miss any valuable information by thinking both sections cover the same material.
For readers looking for inspiration, the curated bios on selected female politicians, akin to brief Wikipedia entries, in section 1 will be helpful. However, for readers looking to get a fuller picture of each politician, the articles cited in the “Deep Dive” section of the book would be a better place to start. Some readers may find reading “Section 2: The Playbook” from start to finish useful, but it would help if similar chapters referenced each other: for example, Section 1’s “Making a Personal Support Plan” is a much more in-depth version of Section 2’s “Assess and Build Your Support System”, and they should reference each other or be merged into one section to improve the reader’s experience.
Crystal Sutherland, MLIS, MEd (Literacy), is the librarian at the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women in Halifax, Nova Scotia.