COLUMBUS, Ohio — This Women’s History Month a new local documentary is highlighting women in politics.
The planning began in 2018 for “Trailblazing Women in Ohio Politics,” and it portrays local female figures and their struggles to get into certain political positions.
Trailblazing Women in Politics is a collaboration between Bowling Green State University and a local PBS station.
Melissa K. Miller is a Political Science Professor at Bowling Green State University. She also worked as the Executive Producer on the film.
“It shines a light on women who broke barriers beginning in the 1960s and seventies,” Miller said.” Appearing when there’s less sort of history about that period when women just began running for office in greater numbers. That’s where we see, if you look at the data in terms of women gaining electoral office, this slow and steady climb begins in the early 1970s.”
Miller said this documentary began as a broad idea nearly five years ago.
“I get a call, which of course makes me nervous when you get a call from the provost who wants to speak to you and the provost said, ‘Melissa, we thought of you,'” Miller said. “You know, ‘We thought of you here in the administration office.’ And I thought, oh, my goodness, what have I done? And, but it was a brainstorm. You’ve you’re our, you know, in-house expert on women in American politics.”
From there, the team reached out to a variety of sources from both sides of the aisle, both Republican and Democrat.
“These women got a fair amount of pushback,” Miller said. “There were naysayers who said, ‘Well, you can run, but you won’t win.’ That really was the kind of thing that crossed party lines. Most of these women were really sort of discounted.”
Catherine Turcer is the Executive Director of Common Cause Ohio. She said she watched the trailer for the documentary and is extremely thrilled.
She said a documentary like this might open the door to minority women having a force in the Ohio Legislature.
“It’s especially important to think about the folks in the minority having an opportunity for their bills to have a hearing and to begin a more open conversation,” Turcer said. “Maybe it’s not going to pass. Maybe those bills have one hearing at the very end of the session, but it begins the conversation.”
Turcer also said a role model of hers former Ohio House State Representative Joan Lawrence has been featured in the documentary.
“She was an amazing redistricting reform advocate in 1981,” Turcer said. “She was the chair of a campaign to actually change the way that we do mapmaking. You think about all of kind of the struggles we’ve had over the years with gerrymandering. Joan Lawrence was at the front.”
Turcer said she cannot wait to watch “Trailblazing Women in Ohio Politics,” and looks forward to the viewing, especially this month.
“We have these role models now so that we can all more easily imagine being a candidate,” Turcer said.
There are public viewings this entire month of the documentary. On March 11th the Cleveland History Center will show the film at 1 p.m., and on March 16th there is a viewing at 7 p.m. at the Dayton Metro Library.
More dates and times are listed on BGSU’s website.
