Political Moms Don’t Have Time for Sex (Scandals) at Pundit Mom's Spin Cycle

A few weeks ago, I half-jokingly said to a friend that there would be fewer political sex scandals if there were more moms in politics — women work harder to get elected, don’t see political office as an entitlement, are WAY too busy with that whole work/life balance thing, and are exquisitely tuned in to their children’s parental embarrassment level to even think about messing up that fine balance for the sake of getting a little something extra on the side.

No hiking the Old Appalachian Trail. No tweeting pics of our privates. No wide stances. Who has time for all that nonsense with a kids, jobs and constituents?

It turns out I’m not the only one who thinks that more elected women would equal fewer sex scandals. A recent Quinnipiac University poll (you know — they’re some of those serious political pollsters) shows that 78 percent of the people polled believe that more women in political office would mean fewer sexual shenanigans and more work getting done for their benefit. Now that’s a novel concept!

So how do we make that happen? It’s not an easy task, but one of the 17 women in the U.S. Senate has come up with an idea. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) recently founded the site called Off the Sidelines as a way to convince women that they are the ones that we want when it comes to running our cities, counties, states and, yes, our country, and that more women need to believe that it’s possible for them to manage their lives while also pursuing political office. Gillibrand is a Democrat, but her effort isn’t limited to calling on her progressive sisters to get involved.

Whether it’s really true that political women would be involved in fewer sex scandals is hard to judge since we still are the vast minority in that world. But we couldn’t do any worse than Mark Sanford, Anthony Weiner and Larry Craig, right?

Joanne knows a lot of other political moms who agree we need to elect more women and you can read more about them in her new book Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America (Bright Sky Press).