Would mums with young families prefer to stay in the home? Heck no, definitely not and no thanks.
The under-representation of women in our council was the topic of a kōrero I initiated last week.
I was interested in barriers to women standing and what other women could offer them to help.
The experiences of women are different, but in general we are reluctant to stand for family reasons, financial reasons and because, rather sadly, we don't back ourselves enough.
Women ponder over a longer set of criteria than males before considering themselves 'qualified' enough to stand.
Basically, women don't rate themselves as highly as a similarly or even lesser qualified male would. Go figure.
The shining beacon of hope from that kōrero was that a group of strong, capable and passionate women have offered experience, skill, creativity and knowledge to support other women to stand next year.
This is exciting, encouraging and could be transformational for how public service looks.
So today, I'm asking the women of Kirikiriroa Hamilton to consider themselves worthy of representing our city and to know that there is support for them to do this.
If it's not your cup of tea, make sure you shoulder tap an inspirational wāhine to put themselves forward and then join us in supporting them to succeed.
Kelli Pike, known as Kelli from the Tron, is a blogger and Free FM podcaster on political, environmental and social issues for the city.
