“We need to do a better job of empowering women and of training them,’’ said Gregory, program director for the Stennis Center for Public Service in Starkville, Miss. “We need more women in positions of influence. Hopefully that will materialize into a woman running for Congress and ultimately being elected.”
It’s a formidable challenge. Mississippi is one of only two states never to elect a woman to Congress. The other is Vermont. But the smaller, more liberal-leaning state has elected a woman to serve as governor, and Mississippi has not.
“It is a state with a very conservative political culture to say the least,” said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutger’s Center for American Women and Politics. “Women are kind of behind the eight ball there.”
Until recently, Iowa and Delaware were also among the states that hadn’t elected a woman to Congress. But Iowa elected Republican Joni Ernst to the Senate in 2014, and last year Delaware sent Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester to serve in the House.
Gregory hopes to capitalize on the growing interest of women in politics as evidenced by the thousands who joined the Women’s March on Washington in January and the rally in Jackson, Miss..
Gregory is attending the “Ready to Run” program hosted by CAWP this weekend so she can create a state version of the nonpartisan training program for women. Plans are already under way for “Mississippi Ready to Run” in Jackson in September.
“More than ever, people — and women in particular — are seeing that there is a place for them in the political process whether that be at the grass-roots level or Congress,’’ she said. “That momentum, that realization … is a good boost to fuel these efforts.”
Separately, the Stennis Center and the Mississippi University for Women run the Mississippi NEW (National Education for Women’s) Leadership Program, a weeklong program aimed at encouraging college women to become more politically involved.
Political experts said part of the challenge is convincing women to enter politics.
“We know from research that women tend to need more encouragement to run,” said Heather Ondercin, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi. “It’s hard any place to recruit women to run.”