A Whiter Shade of Male

However the elections went this week, there will be no women on my county Board of Supervisors.

That’s because no woman stood for election. And none of the supervisor incumbents are female.

With the retirement of the lone woman on the Board of Supervisors, the higher octaves will resound within the county courthouse only from “assistants.”

I always felt better knowing a woman was on the Board. I hoped she pulled strings and made passionate arguments behind the scenes to ensure that the females of this community were heard.

I hoped that as our white county fathers looked at economic development opportunities, she made them think about the employment situation of all of the county’s citizens, not just those able to grow a beard.

I was dismayed that so many incumbents ran unchallenged on the ballot (write-ins not withstanding), because we deserve a choice. I was also unhappy because no female chose to run for office. When the polls closed Tuesday night, for sure we knew we would start 2008 with a slate of five male supervisors. The good ol’ boy network is in place at least until the next election.

This lack of diversity runs throughout county government.

We have a male county administrator and two male deputy county administrators.

The Finance Manager is a guy, too, as is the head of Public Works, the Zoning Administrator, the Building Inspector, the Director of Parks and Recreation, the Library Director, the Emergency Services Director and the County Attorney.

All five members of the Planning Commission, appointed by the supervisors, are dudes, not dudettes. So too are all five members of the Board of Zoning Appeals, also appointed.

The county’s Constitutional Officers – Treasurer, Sheriff, Commissioner of Revenue, County Clerk, and Commonwealth’s Attorney – do not shave their legs.

The General District Court and Circuit Court judges, as well as all of the county’s magistrates and the members of the Electoral Board, are men.

The school superintendent shaves his face in the morning.

The mayors of all three towns – Buchanan, Troutville, Fincastle – could walk around shirtless and not receive a citation.

Women turn up in county government in appointed positions which have little notoriety – Library Board, of which I am currently chair, Social Services, and the Industrial Development Authority.

Women run mowers for Parks and Rec – I have seen them – but do not serve on that board. Nor do they serve on the county’s transportation committee.

We serve the men in charge. We are the county administrator’s administrative assistant, the assistants to the deputy county administrators, the deputy court clerks, deputy sheriff’s or investigators, deputy treasurers, deputy commissioners, assistant attorneys, administrative assistants.

We do not hold the power.

The major exception is the School Board, where two females (only males ran as write-in candidates in one district and two other male-held seats ran unopposed) help mould the policies that define how we bring up our children. The School Board, I must point out, has no taxing authority and cannot do something major, like build a school, without permission from the five (male) county supervisors.

Several of the towns also have a council woman or two. Perhaps smaller government allows for more diversity.

The other exceptions are Director of Social Services, county voter registrar and the county Health Department Director, positions held by women. Those are state jobs, however.

Essentially the county is (not quite) a microcosm of the country. We have a female Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi) and Head of the State Department (Condoleezza Rice) in the federal government and a smattering of female congressmen and senators with a similar number at the state level. (The state has a male governor. Our county’s state representatives, whoever won, speak in baritones, too. In case you hadn’t noticed.)

The supervisors, including the lucky winner in the one seat that had a race, seem like nice guys. I have worked with the incumbents for several years and recently interviewed the hopefuls. None strike me as being petty or indifferent to women.

But they have little clue about what women face in the workforce or elsewhere – just like I can only speculate how difficult, or not, it is to be a man. We may not like it, but gender plays a role in everything we do, from the way we’re perceived at the grocery store to the amount of respect we garner when we step to the podium to object to some big developer’s project.

I know there are witty and intelligent women in this county. I meet them every day; they are the same women I described who work in the lower levels of government. Some are moms at home taking care of their children. Many run small businesses here. Others volunteer at school, strive to conserve county resources and historical structures – or drive to work in the city.

But on the whole we do not lead and we do not hold positions of power.

I wonder why.


**A version of this ran as a column in The Fincastle Herald on November 7, 2007. I made some editorial changes for the blog which consist of eliminating a name or two, mostly because I think I would be unhappy to find my name unannounced on somebody's blog and don't want to subject someone to that.**