When Tracy Richardson, councillor for Ward 8 and deputy mayor of Kawartha Lakes, announced recently that she wouldn’t be running for re-election, it was both a shock and no surprise at all. The shock was that she is a well-liked, experienced councillor who was widely expected to run for mayor in this fall’s municipal elections. The lack of surprise comes from the reality that she’s a woman in politics, and therefore subject to even worse forms of vitriol than the ones that have been increasingly directed at all public figures over the past five years or so.
Her decision is unfortunate, since our community needs councillors who offer a diversity of perspectives. Just one-third of the eight councillors and mayor are women.
But any decent person—and especially any woman—would completely understand why Richardson made her choice. She has experienced threats to the point of needing a restraining order, had garbage dumped on her lawn and dealt with constituents coming to her home and family’s business to vent their anger.
Some of the usual comments popped up as soon as the news became public. She’s exaggerating, they said. She should expect this kind of treatment, they said. It’s no worse than what male councillors encounter, they said.
Wrong, wrong and wrong. In her statement at council, Richardson noted, “As a woman in this role, those experiences have too often been sharpened by bias, scrutiny, and unequal expectations.” By contrast, her fellow councillor Charlie McDonald told Kawartha Lakes Weekly,“She might be in a grocery store with her granddaughter and people will come up and start screaming at her. That never happens to me.”
The disproportionate abuse women in public life experience is not a new issue, but it’s worsened sharply in recent years. Although those perpetuating the online attacks and in-person insults are a minority, their words and actions are far more extreme and relentless than the positive, supportive ones. Twenty people sending appreciative emails won’t outweigh one anonymous threat to harm a family member.
It’s a frustrating paradox: At a time when women’s progress toward equality is being questioned by misogynist influencers, having women in public office is more important than ever before to ensure we have policies and laws that reflect the needs of all people. And yet, it’s as difficult and dangerous to be a woman in politics as it’s ever been.
We need smart, capable, thoughtful, measured women on our city council, at Queen’s Park and in Parliament. We must encourage them to stand for office and support them with our time, donations and votes. When they win, and add their voices to the public conversation, everyone benefits.
Even so, there’s a little voice at the back of our minds warning women to just stay away from the public arena. After all, why would anyone knowingly subject themselves to such hostility and gendered abuse? And in the end, can we, in good conscience, ask women to run for office, knowing what they’ll experience?
By Nancy Payne
