The Wonder Women in our Lives

When I was younger, I wanted to be Wonder Woman. Not her public persona, but Wonder Woman herself. I loved the strength she had as well as the support and network she had with her sister Amazons on Paradise Island. When I play acted, I play acted as Wonder Woman.

When I was a little older, I started to look to new women to emulate, which was around the time Geraldine Ferraro ran for Vice President. How cool that this woman had the strength and courage to run for the second highest office. A real life Wonder Woman! As I grew older, I became more and more aware that there were real life Wonder Women that I could look to in elected office. Women who were speaking out, running for office, showing girls like myself that we too could be outspoken and not be afraid to be a strong woman, no matter who told us we couldn't.

As an adult, I have made politics my career, drawing the strength and examples from these women. Today, there are more and more Wonder Women that a new generation of young, "precocious" girls can look up to and emulate, however, the message that is still out there is that while women make up over 50% of the population, we have a long way to go in seeing the percentage of these Wonder Women reflect reality. This is why I am extremely excited to work for Emerge Wisconsin. I have the dream job of being the Executive Director of an organization that addresses the lack of Wonder Women in office. Our goal is to have the number of women in office at all levels reflect the population they represent.

I am very excited about and proud of the newest group of women to be added to the distinguished group of Emerge Wisconsin Alumnae. As a new Executive Director, this is the first class I have had the pleasure of participating in from beginning to graduation. It has been incredible watching the growth of all of these women as future Democratic leaders. I have seen the excitement of women declare the candidacy to her classmates and her classmates rallying around her in support. I have had the honor of the alumnae from previous classes participating in our program as trainers, supporters and mentors.

As Emerge Wisconsin approaches the opening of our application process for our 2011 class, I am enthusiastic and optimistic about the part we play in increasing the number of Wonder Women in office. This fall, we have 8 Emerge Alumnae running for office - 4 of which just graduated in July! Class by class, year by year, Emerge Wisconsin is doing our part to make sure more and more women run for and win elected office. May we be the Wonder Women that we once emulated.

Wendy Strout, Executive Director, Emerge Wisconsin