Tired of watching the number of female appointments to state boards and commissions drop during the eight-year administration of former Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, three of the state’s female leaders and the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island decided to try to do something about it.
The Women’s Fund and the three women last year organized the Rhode Island Government Appointments Project (RI-GAP). Since August, the group has been working to gather resumes from Rhode Island women for possible nomination to approximately 1,800 governor-appointed positions on hundreds of state boards and commissions.
Some 400 resumes were received to date, 350 of which recently were submitted to Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee for his consideration. (The other 50 were for paid cabinet positions, rather than boards and commissions.)
Although she made it clear that she did not want to criticize Carcieri, Susan L. Farmer, former secretary of state and former president of Rhode Island Public Broadcasting Service, nonetheless pointed out that the percentage of women holding positions on the governor’s cabinet, in state government and on boards and commissions went from 34 percent to 15 percent during the last 10 years.
“The number eroded because no one was talking about it,” Farmer told Providence Business News. “We’ve got to reverse that trend.”
Farmer, who was elected to state office as a Republican, is one of the three who helped form RI-GAP, along with Myrth York, former Democratic candidate for governor, and Susan Stenhouse, former director of community relations in the governor’s office. Farmer explained that each of the three co-chairs then chose four women to comprise a 12-member, multipartisan steering committee.
“Women bring a different perspective, different skills, different attitudes and all kinds of different approaches to what they do,” Farmer said. “There are issues that perhaps matter to women that get ignored if women are not represented.”
“We’re a democratic society, based on inclusion, having a voice and shared leadership,” said Marcia Coné, Women’s Fund executive director. “If half of Rhode Island is not represented on boards and commissions, then their concerns are not being prioritized. There is plenty of evidence that shows how critically important women leaders are.”
Noting that RI-GAP launched Aug. 26, 2010 – the 90th anniversary of women’s suffrage and 10th anniversary of Women’s Fund’s founding – Coné said most of the 1,800 positions on boards and commissions are unpaid and are appointed by the governor, usually without Senate approval. A team from Women’s Fund and RI-GAP recently met to set priorities case-by-case for the boards, based on each panel’s mission and the upcoming legislative environment.
Back in August, when six candidates were running for governor, including a Democrat, a Republican, an independent and Moderate Party member, RI-GAP and Women’s fund successfully had all, including Chafee, sign a pledge to make more female appointments – a move Farmer called “brilliant.”
The pledge the new governor signed states that he will raise the number of women in state positions from 15 percent to 30 percent by the end of his first year in office, with a full-parity, 50 percent goal after his first four-year term, Coné explained. It is too soon, she said, to assess his performance.
Stephen Hourahan, senior adviser to Chafee, said the governor is “really committed” to putting “qualified, talented” women in positions of power. As examples, he cited these new Chafee appointments, all approved by the Senate where needed: Helena Buonanno Foulkes as vice chair of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation; Carolina Bernal and Eva Marie Mancuso to the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education; Jane Sherman and Joan Abrams, to the Board of Governors for Higher Education. Others are pending.
While only 22 percent of the General Assembly is female, women in Rhode Island hold prominent positions as state officers, Senate president, in the judicial system, at the hospitals and at the universities.
“Slowly, we’re making inroads,” Coné said, “but we are a long way from parity.” •
