Simone became an official adult during America's "women's rights" movement; 60s-70s.
By 2001, she'd established herself as a consultant to nonprofits, specializing in fundraising and governance. That same year, she co-founded, as a volunteer, the RI Women's Fund (WFRI); inspired by a group she'd worked with in Tucson, AZ.
The RI Women's Fund aimed to help local women attain public office, among other things. The founding board was exclusively female; thick with proven political heavyweights; stridently diverse.
Ultimately, did it make any huge difference in any specific election? It didn't hurt. The RI Women's Fund surveyed, polled, wondered ... and issued scorching reports. It trained grassroots candidates. It lobbied. It challenged. In its early years, rabble-rousers mobbed to join: the annual RI Women's Fund gathering was volcanic.
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Here's what's worth knowing: change can happen; sooner than you might expect.
What WFRI learned in its early days: female representation "only" needs to constitute a third of any legislative body (your general assembly; your parliament; your what have you). Good global research by the Women's Fund of RI found that "a third" was the magic tipping point.
Are you listening? We're talking MAGIC.
You don't need 50/50 gender representation. Once a third or more of your legislators are female, global research found, the agenda quickly shifted. It moved from male preoccupations ("If we had a big-enough cross-bow, could we wound the man in the moon?") to issues more daily and humane: universal daycare for working moms and such; early childhood education; a living wage; a healthy future.
In 2001, RI's state legislature was 31% female — just shy of that "magic third." The percentage even went into a bit of a swoon for a while, in the years following 9/11. But by 2018, 38% of RI's legislature was female. And in 2014 Rhode Island elected its first female governor; in 2021, she became America's new Secretary of Commerce.
And so times change, step by step by push by shove by people who commit: the original RI Women's Fund among them.