In his Glendale News Press column today, Dan Kimber recalls his experience moderating the February 25 Glendale City Council candidates’ forum in La Crescenta. He was too busy moderating, though, to take notes on Vartan Gharpetian‘s objection to a statement reflecting gender stereotypes.
Kimber posed his own question, the first of the evening, to candidate Laura Friedman, asking her whether she thought the Glendale City Council, now exclusively male, would benefit from a female voice. Friedman was the only female candidate present, as Lenore Solis did not appear at this forum.
Friedman took this leading question as a gift. As Kimber reported, she suggested that a woman on the city council would naturally bring a woman’s perspective to issues facing the city. Kimber didn’t record the second half of her answer, though. Friedman went on to say that women, more than men, have the interests of children uppermost in their minds. After inserting his own thoughts about the “moderation” a woman’s voice brings to politics, Kimber writes:
After Friedman spoke I asked the gentlemen if they wanted to comment on the “gender issue” and interestingly (but predictably) enough, not a hand went up.
Kimber must not remember every detail; and as moderator, he wasn’t responsible for taking notes. According to my notes, candidate Vartan Gharpetian did raise his hand. Gharpetian took issue with Friedman’s assertion that women consider children and the issues affecting children more than men. He mentioned that he was an active parent of three children, and was very concerned about his children and their future in the city of Glendale.
Several of the male candidates running for office are fathers; at least four of them (Gharpetian, Edward Lafian, Aram Kazazian, and Bruce Philpott) have mentioned this fact repeatedly in public forums. Their effort to cast themselves as involved parents reflects their knowledge, as candidates at least, that the needs of children in this community are important to voters and citizens.
I completely agree with Mr. Gharpetian that women don’t have a patent on caring for children, and that fathers are just as concerned as mothers with the welfare off their offspring. I am sorry that you or he took my statements as meaning that I think otherwise.
However, I don’t believe that I argued or even implied that a woman on council would care more about the city’s children than a man (although I don’t remember the exact wording of my response). In fact, I remember that as Mr. Gharpetian made his response, I heard a few audience members saying “she didn’t say that!” However, I do acknowledge that it’s very possible that I was unclear. Believe it or not, it was the first time I had been asked this question at a forum, and hadn’t given it very much thought!
I did question whether it might be easier for women to speak in front of City Council if there were a few female faces on the dais, which is definitely an assumption on my part.
This is a great blog and I truly enjoy your provocative and thoughtful essays.
Laura Friedman
I just asked my husband about the question, and he remembered me as saying something about the priorities of a woman being a little different from the priorities of a man. If so, then I can see how you and Mr. Gharpetian made the leap. It was definitely not my intention to imply that a councilwoman would care more about Glendale’s children than a councilman.
The main point of this post was that the moderator submitted an inaccurate report on the proceedings; a male candidate did raise his hand to respond to your answer on the first issue raised.
With respect to your comment that a woman might find it easier to speak to a council on which women were present: while that is an assumption, it seems to me a safe one. The converse is probably true for most men!