Trigger warning🚨 If reading this essay makes you feel put upon in any way, congratulations! You’re probably overrepresented in the halls of power !

The enduring lack of opportunities for women at the highest levels of NJ politics is something we’ve examined on these pages for years. This includes a story from last month detailing how New Jersey’s redistricting process perpetuates a status quo that overwhelmingly favors straight, old, white dudes.

Stats don’t lie:

• According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, only 37 of 120  (30.8%) seats in the NJ Senate and General Assembly are held by women.
• Only 2 of NJ’s 14-member Congressional delegation are female, 14.3%. NJ’s delegation was all-male from 2000 until 2015 when Bonnie Watson Coleman because only the 7th female Congress member in NJ history.
• Of the top 25 largest towns in New Jersey, only Cherry Hill at #14 is led by a women, Mayor Susan Shin’s Angulo.

You get the point.

We all have a part to play when it comes to leveling the playing field. Luckily, I’ve had a lot of help figuring out my part.

Self-reflection

A few years ago, when the late LGBTQ icon Babs Siperstein challenged me to quote more female sources, I was surprised because I’d always fancied myself an equal opportunity quoter. If you don’t know Babs, she was #1 on InsiderNJ’s inaugural OUT 100 Power List, a tribute to influential LGBTQs in NJ politics.

“I quote women all the time, maybe more than any other political writer in the state,” I replied. “What do you want me to do, Babs? Re-read everything I wrote this year and make a list just to prove it?”

Overlooking my defensiveness, Babs challenged me to pull a few stories at random to test my hunch and the results were an embarrassing surprise. The five essays I randomly selected included quotes from 7 sources, six men and one woman.

My actual 14% track record belied the self-delusion that I was a 50-50 kinda guy even though that’s what I really wanted to be.

Maybe why they call it an “unconscious bias?”

“If you’re lucky enough to get paid to share your political opinions, then please be mindful of the voices you choose to elevate. Write this stuff down. Start a spreadsheet to keep track of who you quote,” Babs told me, settling the matter for good.

I want my sources to represent what New Jersery actually looks like. So I made it a priority and started keeping a spreadsheet which I updated at the end of every month.

Better than 50-50

So far this year my columns and essays have included quotes from 89 different people, a figure that includes 45 women and 43 men. One source identifies as binary. It’s a track record that would please Babs, who always pushed me to challenge myself with vigor to become a more effective writer and activist.

I wish I could call Babs and ask what she had in mind encouraging me to curate my sources more mindfully. If her goal was to make me a better writer it may have worked. The year I began tracking my sources, accolades came from places like the New Jersey Press Association and the NJ Society of Professional Journalists. Maybe it’s a coincidence to snag prizes from organizations whose gates I used to crash.

Or maybe, just maybe, taking Babs’ advice actually helped me raise my game.

Babs came out as transgender relatively later in her life. It’s not lost of me that the only woman to ever clock me for elevating (mostly) male voices was in fact raised and socialized as a boy. Reflect on that for a minute if you need to.

Finally…

Working for InsiderNJ (and before that, PolitickerNJ) means I’m lobbied, sometimes shamelessly, most years leading up to the big Power List publication despite my negligible influence over that project.

Some years it’s only one or two while others it’s a half-dozen or more men, and it’s always men and far as I can recall, promoting themselves for Power List consideration weeks in advance.

I can’t recall a women ever doing that which is crazy because men do it every year like clockwork.

Feedback, constructive or otherwise, that comes after the fact is too late. The list is already out by then. So I’ll say it again: Ladies, hype thyself because your male counterparts are promoting themselves all the time!

Jay Lassiter is the court jester of NJ politics. He’s been called a “f*cking b*tch” enough to know that homophobia is just sexism in really bad drag.