Event helps women get ready to run for office

Tanya Cook had gone to Georgetown University.

She had worked on the successful mayoral campaign of New York City’s first black mayor, David Dinkins.

And she had worked on the unsuccessful campaign of Omaha’s would-be first black mayor, Brenda Council. Plus, she had worked for two Nebraska governors.

Yet even Cook — no newcomer to politics, and long encouraged by her family to participate — wasn’t sure she would run for office. The recently elected state senator from north Omaha credits a Ready to Run seminar.

Now, she will be among the presenters Saturday in Omaha at an event aimed at getting women to consider seeking elected office in Nebraska.

For a state that once made history when two women faced off for governor, there are relatively few women today holding elected office in Nebraska.

The Women’s Fund of Greater Omaha and the Friends of the Lincoln Mayor’s Commission on Women are trying to change that with Ready to Run, now in its fifth year.

Loree Bykerk, professor of political science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, will be the keynote speaker.

Bykerk said events like Ready to Run are needed because of gender, social and political dynamics that seem to propel men into office but hold women back.

“Men get recruited in a lot of environments to which women don’t have as good of access,” Bykerk said, adding that those include boardrooms and professional and social organizations.

Women also aren’t represented as well as men in jobs that pay well enough or have the flexibility and independence needed to network or even run.

Furthermore, she said, women often need to be talked into running.

Nebraska does not necessarily stand out. The U.S. Congress is about 17 percent female; 17 of 100 U.S. senators are women and 73 of the 435 House of Representatives seats are held by women. That the Speaker of the House is a woman is history-making. Nancy Pelosi, named in 2007, is the first to hold that post.

A quarter of all state legislative seats are held by women, according to an analysis by Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that aims to expand workplace opportunities for women. Catalyst ranked Nebraska 35th in this regard. Just 10 of 49 Nebraska state senators are women.

As one of the 10, Cook, 44, reflected on her decision and said Ready to Run was “a really good investment of my time.”

She said she didn’t wake up one morning and decide she would become a political candidate.

Rather, she realized that she, as a nearly lifelong Nebraskan, has a perspective as a single woman of color that is not well-represented. She wanted her voice heard.

“Finally, it was kind of smashing myself on the forehead and saying, ‘Tanya, you’ve got more direct experience in policy-making, politics and campaigns than many people going to file. Why wouldn’t you go for it?’”

Contact the writer:

444-1136, erin.grace@owh.com

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