Let’s Get Our Own House in Order
By Theodore Staton – City Manager, Upper Arlington, OH
Last week, I was on a panel at the Ohio Municipal League conference on the value and benefits of adopting the council-manager form of government. While sitting with my fellow panelists, I reflected that the entire panel was comprised of white males and the audience was primarily white males. By my count, maybe 30 percent of the audience was made up of women. Near the end of the presentation, I had a chance to mention that if the room were filled with City Managers, only about 13 percent would be women. There were some who took exception with the statistic citing 17 percent as a better estimate. My retort was whatever the case 13 percent or 17 percent, the number is pretty pitiful. Furthermore, I know the correct number and also know that it has not improved much in the past three decades. (Incidentally, the 17 percent number is the number of women CEO’s in the private sector).
As a profession, we are trying to attract the next generation to consider becoming chief executives in local government. I am certain that task is made more difficult by the fact that most of the role models are men. We need to do a better job highlighting the women who have risen to the highest levels in the profession and those that have been ready and are still waiting in the wings. I will do my part by asking that female City Managers be included, the next time I am asked to serve on a panel like the one I served on last week.
I was once told by a fire chief trying to recruit minorities and females to the fire service that the image of firefighters was hard to overcome. White men with mustaches standing with a Dalmatian in front of the firehouse didn’t present a welcoming image to minorities and women. I wonder if we don’t suffer a bit of the same image problem in the city management profession with the image of all white male panels at conferences representing our profession?
