Elected Women: Skewers of the Political System

Abstract

The term “skewer” derives from two sources: the culinary arts and Rosabeth Kanter. As most women know, a skewer is a long, sharp pin stuck into a piece of meat to hold it together. As many social scientists know, Kanter has argued in Men and Women of the Corporation that proportionality has a great deal to do with the interaction of members within a group.¹ Specifically, she says that a group with up to 20% minority members (whether that minority be women, men, black, or white) is a “skewed” group; and only if the minority is over 40% can the group be called “balanced.” The elected women of this study are called skewers, because they seem to hold the political system together by keeping it in touch with citizen concerns despite their small numbers. They also are labeled skewers because many of them skew the governing body to which they are elected. Previously those bodies were neither balanced nor tilted; they were homogeneous. The skewing affects the system in that it affects the women officials who may not have had a minority experience prior to taking office.