The political glass ceiling has shattered in Onondaga County, with women occupying the three most powerful public offices.
“I don’t know how you can explain it, except maybe at this moment in time there are more female candidates,” said Joanie Mahoney, one of the three ceiling-breakers as Onondaga County executive.
The other two are the mayor of Syracuse, Stephanie Miner, and the newly elected member of Congress from the 25th Congressional District, Ann Marie Buerkle. And the rare trio is also bi-partisan. Mahoney and Buerkle are Republicans. Miner is a Democrat. Each is the first woman to hold her office.
For comparison, consider these numbers of women in politics:
- Mahoney is one of six female county executives or administrators out of 57 total in the state. The others govern Monroe, Broome, Rensselaer, St. Lawrence and Yates Counties. The administrators in St. Lawrence and Yates are appointed, not elected.
- Miner is one of three female mayors of cities with a population of more than 30,000 in New York state. She is the only female mayor of the state’s five largest cities — Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and New York City.
- Buerkle is one of six women among New York’s 29 members of the House of Representatives.
The reasons for the local break-through are unclear, say experts on women in politics.
Some national research has shown that once one woman is elected into office, more tend to follow, said Kelly Dittmar, a research associate at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. The stereotype of politics being a place for men can be “demystified” once one woman is in office, she said.
And outside of politics, Central New York already has some high-profile women in powerful positions. They include Nancy Cantor, Syracuse University chancellor; Debbie Sydow, president of Onondaga Community College; and Deborah Stanley, president of the State University of New York at Oswego.
Once in office, women leaders tend to have some differences in style and focus, say Dittmar and other experts. Women in elected office tend to have a more collaborative leadership style and focus policy initiatives more on topics like education, domestic violence and children’s rights.
In leadership style, studies show women often lead differently, Dittmar said. “Once women get into politics, they may be willing to be a bit more bipartisan and deliberative,” she said.
Women from both sides of the political spectrum also tend to lean more moderate, Dittmar said. But that may change in today’s highly partisan environment. For example, newly elected Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, a Republican, received support from the conservative Tea Party throughout her campaign for the 25th Congressional District. That may make it harder for her to move toward the center now that the election is over. Buerkle is also the only of the three to be elected in 2010, a season which saw lower victories for women nationwide.
For Onondaga County executive, Mahoney was elected three years ago. The portrait of women as more collaborative, she said, may reflect old gender stereotypes. Women sometimes get flack from using an abrasive, direct leadership style, she said. “We’ve been forced to play by different rules that has resulted in a level of collaboration,” Mahoney said. “I don’t know if it’s innate to women or something we had to learn.”
On their areas of political focus, women also have tended to emphasis different issues, say experts on women in politics. On a national level, political women helped shift the national conversation to focus more on issues like domestic violence legislation, said Kristi Andersen, a political scientist at Syracuse University with practical experience. She has been an elected town councilor in Cazenovia since 2005.
Nationally, said Andersen, health discussions also used to focus more on heart disease and issues that affect men more. But that too has shifted with more women in power, she said.
But on a local level, leaders focus on the area’s needs rather than choosing their issues. County executives and mayors, for example, said Andersen, “No, you don’t choose your issues.”
(Kathleen Ronayne is a junior majoring in newspaper journalism.)
-30-
