A year after unprecedented throngs of women turned out for marches around the country, many wearing pink hats and chanting protest slogans, record numbers of American women are moving from the streets to the campaign trail.

Many connect their candidacy to the 2017 march itself. A year ago this week, partly in response to the election and the then-recent inauguration of President Donald Trump, an estimated 4.1 million supporters of equal pay, reproductive rights, accessible health care and a host of other issues turned out in every state of the union.

Today, as the world gears up for another day of protest (on Sat., Jan. 20, hundreds of events are slated nationally and in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Riverside and Hemet, among others) thousands of women are seeking to change the system by joining it.

“Unless something unbelievable happens … this is going to be a record year for women running, at least in primaries,” said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics. Women are trying to win roles in all levels of government, from Congress and governorships to state legislatures and local school boards.

While the wave of women seeking office could make a dent in the historic gender imbalance in government — women account for more than half the U.S. population but less than 20 percent of Congress — candidates say their motivations are more diverse than that.

Why they’re running

A year ago, Tiffany Ackley was at the Women’s March in Los Angeles. The crowd was thick enough that as she carried her baby son and pushed her daughter’s stroller, she could barely move. But she was energized, she said, not intimidated.

When her daughter asked what they might actually do about women’s rights and the other causes they were marching for, Ackley — who had long been interested, but not active, in politics — was moved.

“What do you say to that? You say, ‘Well, I’m going to try to change it.'”

A year later, Ackley, 38, is a candidate for a seat on the currently all-male Aliso Viejo City Council.

Julia Peacock, a public school teacher from Corona, also upped her political action following the march. In the past year she’s been a delegate for the California Democratic party and joined a group that seeks to meet with their congressman to discuss issues like healthcare policy.

When they couldn’t get a meeting, Peacock, 49, and other protesters showed up outside U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert’s fundraiser at Riverside’s Mission Inn in February.

“We were mocked and called names by his guests,” and one even gave her the finger, Peacock said.

“Somebody handed me a bullhorn, and then somebody else handed me a microphone,” she said.

“I realized that I could do better, because we deserved better.”

Peacock is running for Calvert’s seat representing the 42nd Congressional District.

Frustrated by the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, Gordana Kajer, of Long Beach, said she took to heart a suggestion that the local political scene is a great place to start, in part, because you’re dealing with neighbors. “These are people that you know,” she said.

Kajer, 60, also disagreed with some recent decisions from Long Beach City Council, so she’s now running for a seat on the dais.

“I felt that my voice and my neighbors’ voices were going unheard.”

What they’re encountering

Several candidates said more women don’t run for office because they feel like they’re discouraged from speaking out, and that they are judged when they do.

Both Ackley and Michelle Singleton, who’s running for the 67th District state Assembly seat in Riverside County, said online critics have suggested they’re neglecting their families by seeking office.

“Hillary Clinton was criticized in different ways than Donald Trump was, and I think that’s a little bit of a deterrent when women feel like this system is set up for them not to succeed in it,” said Singleton, a 34-year-old high school teacher from Menifee.

At an event where she and others were preparing to speak, Singleton noticed a male congressional candidate having a drink.

“He was sipping on a beer before talking, and I (thought) ‘I can’t imagine doing that because I know I would be criticized,'” she said.

Research shows women may shy from public office for the same reason they don’t seek promotions as often as men — because they tend to be more risk-averse, said Marcia Godwin, a public administration professor at the University of La Verne.

Women also are more likely to wait until a specific issue moves them, or until they’re asked to run, as opposed to pursuing politics for its own sake, said Walsh of the Center for American Women and Politics.

But, Walsh added, that’s changing.

“I think what we’re seeing now is a a real belief that women cannot afford to let somebody else do this work anymore; that they have to be part of the equation, not just as voters but as candidates.”

Why it matters

The numbers are attention-grabbing. The nonprofit, non-partisan group She Should Run counts more than 16,000 women participating in its programs, which encourage women to run for office and offer support and resources. Most are first-time candidates, said Sofia Pereira, a community manager with the group.

The current wave of women candidates is largely liberal. Part of the reason, experts say, is that conservative women don’t get as much support from groups outside the GOP.

For example, the left-leaning Emily’s List political action group has been around since 1985 and claims to have helped elect more than 123 women to Congress including California senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris. A conservative group with a similar name and similar goals, Maggie’s List, was created in 2010.

“There’s really sort of fewer avenues for Republican woman to get the training and expertise to run as candidates,” Godwin said.

The gap between the parties is substantial; the Center for American Women and Politics projects twice as many Democratic women as Republican women will run for U.S. Senate seats this year. But some conservative women are seeking office, even if their motivations differ from their liberal counterparts.

Mari Barke, of Rossmoor, is a first-time candidate looking to get elected to the Orange County School Board. Now that her kids have grown up and moved out, Barke said, “I just had the time to really pay attention to what’s going on in our country, our country and our community. And I want to make a difference.”

Women have something to contribute, said Barke, 55, as does anyone willing to commit the time to public service.

But other Southern California women say they bring a perspective that’s been missing from public office.

“My first reaction is women do business differently than men, and I think they look at problem solving differently,” focusing on consensus building, said Kajer, the Long Beach council candidate.

Shayna Lathus, 42, a first-time candidate for Huntington Beach City Council, hopes to overcome some of the recent divisiveness in politics.

When she was a girl, she said, “I remember saying to my mom, ‘I feel like maybe we wouldn’t have as many wars if there were more women in charge.'”

Singleton, the state Assembly candidate, recalled a U.S. Supreme Court case regarding student privacy in which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — then the only woman on the court — pointed out how upsetting it must have been for the plaintiff, an adolescent girl, to be strip searched.

Referring to her male colleagues, Ginsburg told USA Today in 2009, “They have never been a 13-year-old girl.”

The court majority sided with Ginsburg in ruling the search unconstitutional.

If elected, Ackley said, she would be the only woman — and the only parent with young children — on the Aliso Viejo City Council.

When people with different backgrounds and perspectives are included, she said, “You really sort of get this dynamic government that is better able to serve everybody.”

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