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Politics
and Public Service
Roxanne
Roy
As a young woman of the 21st century, I often feel like
I am being assaulted by a barrage of billboards, TV ads, and other media
sources telling me who I should be. Recently when asked to name my
favorite female role model I found to my dismay that, not only could I
not come up with a favorite, but that I could not even think of any
females I would consider role models. This however, was before I
attended a campus presentation by California State Senator Sheila Kuehl
titled “ Politics and Public Service: Can They Be the Same Thing?”
Senator Sheila Kuehl is a truly inspiring woman. The former
“Zelda” on television, a woman in her fifties, and an open lesbian,
Senator Kuehl was a California assemblywoman for six years, helped form
the California Women’s Law Association, and was the first woman
speaker pro tem. In addition, she is the chairperson of both the Natural
Resources and Wildlife committee, and the School committee. She has also
helped to turn seventy-three bills into law spanning such topics as
child support, nurse-to-patient ratios, domestic violence, and sexual
orientation. As if that wasn’t enough, she was also chosen by the
California Journal as its year 2000 choice for politician with the most
integrity and intelligence. Senator Kuehl is an amazing example of how
effective a woman can be in a position of leadership. This is my kind of
role model!
Her discourse began with a story about a woman who was responsible
for carrying water from the nearby river to her remote village. She did
this by carrying two buckets balanced on each end of a pole over her
shoulders. One day, the bucket on her right side was sad, and when she
asked it why, it answered by saying that it was always empty by the time
it got back to the village, and so felt useless, and without purpose,
since the other bucket gave water to the villagers to drink. The woman
consoled it, and told it to wait and see what tomorrow would bring. The
next day she went down to the river again, and while returning on the
road, told the right side bucket to look at the left side of the road.
“What do you see?” she asked. “Nothing,” answered the bucket.
“Now look to the right side of the road and tell me what you see,”
she said. “Why, a whole row of beautiful flowers,” the bucket
answered in surprise. “That is your doing. You just didn’t
understand your purpose.” Senator Kuehl thus illustrated to us that
our most important goal as college students should be to find our own
purpose, which, she said, can be done by paying attention to our
interests.
For those of us interested in social action, it can be difficult
to decide what is the best way to effect positive change in our society.
When mulling over what my own future will hold, I have wondered, should
I be a politician? A lawyer? Work for a non-profit organization? Ms.
Kuehl was really helpful to me because she explained what a person truly
does in those various positions. Politics, she said, is all about the
‘art of listening’ and she warned us not to underestimate voters.
“Most voters are smarter and care more than the average politician
gives them credit for,” she told us. She said it was important to
figure out what your own values are, what you stand for, and what you
won’t stand for. Public service is more involved in governance she
explained. It requires you
have a point-of-view, and it involves a personal obligation to be
involved in the law-making process.
Senator Kuehl concluded her presentation by addressing the very
questions that had been going through my mind: how can I get involved
and make a difference, and do I have what it takes to be a female role
model myself and to lead? She answered the question with her own
interpretation of the Wizard of Oz story. She said it was about, “a
collection of diverse entities that all thought they were deficient in
some way. They decide that the way to overcome their deficiencies is to
set off on a seemingly impossible journey to ask this great wizard to
fix their problems. When they get to him, he’s this big booming
light-show guy. However, when the dog pulls away the curtain, you find
out it’s just a little old man working a bunch of pulleys. “That’s
Sacramento,” she said amidst the laughter of the audience. “It’s
at this part of the story that you realize they’ve been using what
they needed all along, courage, heart, and brains.” With a smile, she
looked out at us all and shared the most important thing I learned that
day; “You already have everything you need to be the hero of your own
life. All you need is to just find your purpose and get moving.”
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