Boys and Girls!  Attention, Please!

You and I are among the 300-million plus Americans who are sick to death of the dysfunction in our United States Congress. That is basically all of us except those too young to get it or too old to care any more.

Our latest government shutdown was the straw that broke my patient camel’s back, and I will not beat that poor camel any more. All I have to say about that is that our collective frustration is not over yet, only postponed. The federal government is funded only for another two months, and the debt ceiling will have to be revisited before Feb. 7.

Are you dreading the next round as much as I am?There was one bright spot for me and for syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker among others during what Scarlett O’Hara might have described as the “recent unpleasantness.” While men in the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, bickered and postured and called each other names, several women Senators, again both Democrats and Republicans, rolled up their sleeves, sat down together, and tackled the work at hand. It did not escape notice that while Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) patted themselves on the backs and announced the eventual deal, its framework had been put together by a group of women Senators who avoided blustering and just did it

.No lesser light than longtime Republican Senator and former Presidential candidate John McCain confessed, “Leadership, I must fully admit, was provided by women in the Senate.”

Why am I not surprised?

Like Congress, the membership of the North Carolina General Assembly and all other state legislatures is largely male. There are many reasons for this. Originally only white, male property owners were eligible to serve, women and minorities have a tougher time raising the money necessary to run successful campaigns, and, more nebulously, women approached to run for elective office are more likely to ask “Why me?” while men are more likely to ask “Why not me?”

The reality, though, is that women make excellent legislators at all levels, just as a group of senators has just demonstrated.

Women serving in elective office is often discussed in terms of fairness. People making public policy should reflect our population, including women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans, all of whom are represented in our increasingly diverse society. Office holders at the policy making table should look like the rest of our community.That is only fair and equitable, we say, but it is also smart politics, good business and it promotes economic development.Women make up more than 50 percent of our state and nation’s populations and now represent 57 percent of college enrollments. In many instances, women are outperforming our male counterparts in the academic arena.

In the political arena, not so much.Only 22 percent of the 535 members of our United States Congress are women. In North Carolina, things are one percent better, but that percentage is down from the last decade. Stunningly, the United States ranks 91st in the world in electing women to a congress or a parliament.

People in other countries must look at this and think, “Really?”I look at this and cannot help but think that some of our worst messes, like what we just suffered through with Congress, relect this disparity.

My experience is that women are not necessarily better legislators and policy makers than men. Some are and some are not. Individuals, regardless of gender, bring different skills and talents to any endeavor. All of us, both men and women, excel some of the time, fail some of the time and are mediocre some of the time.

Women do bring different life experiences to the public policy table. We have lived life from different perspectives than men, and our skills are often more consensus-oriented than executive decrees. Our voices enrich the public conversation as study after study continues to show. Studies also show that women are perceived as less corrupt and more collaborative than our male counterparts, which has got to be a plus in the current highly charged partisan atmosphere.

Columnist Kathleen Parker wrote recently about the positive role of women senators in resolving our latest government shutdown and referenced the old adage, “Behind every great man is a great woman.” I hope that is true and that the reverse is also true.

But here is how Parker ended her column

.“…may many more women invade the congresses and white houses of their states and nation to practice and teach the arts of compromise. And let it be said hereafter that behind every great woman is…probably a bunch of other great women.”

Well worth thinking about as we head into the political battlefields of 2014.

Photo: Like Congress, the membership of the North Carolina General Assembly and all other state legislatures is largely male.