Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: "A [WHITE] Man's World In Kentucky Politics" How APPALLING!

A man's world in Kentucky politics

You don't even have to be a numbers cruncher to get excited by this string of statistics:

In the 2000 census 51.1 percent of Kentuckians were female.

In 1997, 56 percent of college graduates in Kentucky were female, a number that rose to 59 percent by 2007.

Women account for 52.9 percent of registered voters in Kentucky.

In the last general election, among registered voters, a higher percentage of women than men actually voted in every age category except 62 and over.

In the Kentucky House of Representatives 15 percent of the members are women; 15.8 percent of Senate members are women.

Get the picture? In the halls of governance in Kentucky, it's still a man's world. "Excited" may not be exactly the right word. How about appalled?

In an annual report on women officeholders — released by Secretary of State Trey Grayson on Wednesday this year, the 89th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote — Kentucky has made a pitiful jump from 49th position in 1995, the first year, to 45th this year.

Here in Kentucky the only elected offices in which women approach or exceed their representation in the population are county clerk (59.2 percent), circuit clerk (65.8 percent — is there something about the term "clerk" that makes voters comfortable about choosing a girl?), court of appeals (42.9 percent), district court (38.8 percent), and county PVA (36.7 percent.) Among county judge executives, only 6.7 percent are female.

It's interesting to note that, while Grayson, a male who is running for the U.S. Senate, includes the stats on women in Congress (17 percent in the Senate, 17.5 percent in the House) he seemed to kind of forget about the numbers for Kentucky (0 and 0.)

It's a whole lot of numbers, but here's the bottom line:

For individual women, and the hard-working, hard-studying girls who will soon become women, public life still looks a whole lot like a huddle on a football field: with a lot of men locked arm-in-arm to keep everyone else out.

For Kentucky, a lot of talent is left untapped.

We can't be hopeful about our state's future when the more educated majority is underrepresented in public-policy positions.

Editor's comment: If you want "pitiful" and "appalling", check out statistics on African Americans/Blacks and "other minorities".

NOW THAT'S PITIFUL AND APPALLING FOR YA!

*SIGH*