Ignite: Tell a Girl to Run – For Office!

“Anything you can do,

I can do better.

I can do anything

Better than you.”

The words of this song by Betty Hutton and Howard Keel from the movie “Annie Get your Gun” come to mind when you compare the abilities of what boy can do with what girls can do.

In 2016, gender equality seems to be on the mind of everyone, especially in politics as the United States made history by announcing the first women presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Unfortunately, boys and girls still aren’t on an equal platform. According to Ignite, women make up 51% of the population but are dramatically underrepresented in political leadership, holding  only 22% of positions in elected offices.

Ignite aims to build a national movement to dramatically increase the pool of women who are prepared and eager to become the next generation of political leaders and has trained over 5,000 young women to date, according to its website.

“We will not reach parity for another 100 years at the rate in which the US currently elects women; that’s too long,” said Anne Moses, Founder and President of IGNITE, in a press release.

“We hope this video will insight urgency and spark a national conversation about how we can inspire and activate the next generation of young women to stand up and own their fair share of political power.”

So when PJ Pereira of Pereira & O’Dell met with friends and they shared the same statistics to him, he knew he was hooked.

“That’s when I realized that we are all part of the problem,” said Pereira. “You grow up and everyone asks your brother or your male cousin if they want to be president but no one asks little girls so at some point, they stop considering, they stop dreaming about it and start rationalizing that its not for them.”

Periera’s firm Pereira & O’Dell, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, and Koya Leadership Partners teamed up with IGNITE to release a PSA short video that addresses the messages society should be sending young women about their political ambition.

The title of the video is “We All Belong Here.” and is part of a larger campaign called #DeclareYourAmbition. The call to action: IGNITE is asking 140,000 people to go to their website www.ignitenational.org and take this pledge: I intend to run for office or encourage another young woman to run (140,000 is the number of women we need in elected office at all levels to reach political parity).

The campaign has gotten the attention of many influential leaders who have also shared the campaign on social media including Hillary Clinton, Kristin Bell, Gloria Steinem, AT&T’s Executive Director-Diversity & Inclusion, Rick Gomez, and Arianna Huffington.

But according to Periera, the real victory is when people stop and realize that they are part of the problem.

“Because next steps are figuring out what it is and understanding that its not happening in somebody’s living room, its happening in ours and being aware of that is the first step to fixing it.,” explained Periera.

“I have become that crazy uncle now, I have been asking all the young girls I know if they have thought about becoming President,” he added.