The women of Williamette are ready to run!

Willamette University attendees listen to one of the many inspirational women who spoke at Elect Her.

 

Over 20 young women gathered at Williamette University this weekend to learn about running for student government on campus or tackling a higher office after graduation.

As we all know, a major reason why women don’t run for public office is the fact that they aren’t asked at the same rate as their male counterparts.  I started the training by asking each woman to run for office. Just that small gesture started to instill the confidence that would grow over the course of the day.

The “ask” was repeated at least twice throughout the training, including once by our guest speaker, Nikki Terzief of 360 Strategies, who talked about messaging on campaigns.  The women of Williamette have officially been asked (3 times!), trained, and are ready to run.

The confidence boosting and campaign training continued with our amazing keynote speaker – State Senator Ginny Burdick. Senator Burdick motivated the young women with her stories of “giving herself confidence over night.” Everyone in the room felt inspired by her leadership, drive, and positive attitude. Senator Burdick stayed after her speech to speak with the women, take some photos and talk to them about interning at the State Legislature.

As the training progressed, I was impressed by how acutely aware the participants were of the challenges women in politics face.  We talked about how female candidates are covered by the media, perceived by voters, and how they are often treated by their colleagues. We also talked about how to overcome these challenges and I reminded them if they wanted to change the system, they had to get in the game and just run!

Each participant had the opportunity to practice talking about why they would run for office and deliver a short speech. The passion of each young woman was clear from the outset, but after the training, they were able to clearly communicate their passion and message to others.

We wrapped up the day with a campaign simulation where each woman gave their speech while others voted. Top vote getters progressed to quarterfinals, semi-finals, and eventually the final round. The most exciting part about the exercise was watching the progression. Round after round, the speeches got better and better.  By the end, we were all moved by our winner Tana Watanabe and her explanation of why she wanted to run for office.

Congratulations to Tana and congratulations to all the participants.  It was a great weekend and I look forward to watching what these young women will conquer in their futures.

This post was written by Chadderdon Group Strategist Karen Defilippi.