When Will a Woman Run NYC?

New York City has, in its almost 400 year history, never been run by a woman. No woman has ever ascended to the office of the mayor.

In a way, for a city as progressive and bursting with opportunity as NYC, this is a bit of an embarrassment. Many states, including some very conservative ones, have had female governors. Other big cities like Dallas and, as of this year, Chicago, have had female mayors. But not NYC.  

Women have done well in other high NYC offices. We've had a female comptroller (Elizabeth Holtzman), two female public advocates (Betsy Gotbaum and Tish James), two female speakers (Chris Quinn and Melissa Mark-Viverito), and, when the office still existed, a female City Council President (Carol Bellamy). There have also been several female borough presidents. 

And yet the top prize has proved elusive to many of them (and other women) when they ran for it.

Only two women, in fact, have ever made it to the general election ballot: Democrat Ruth Messinger in 1997 and Republican Nicole Malliotakis in 2017 (I'm not counting any candidates who ran third-party and never had a serious chance of getting elected). They both lost, badly, because they were running against popular incumbents up for re-election so their defeats had more to do with the political environments than anything else. Others, like Chris Quinn, simply were at odds with the primary electorate. No candidate has ever lost, from what I can tell, due to outright sexism -- like most candidates who lose (and most people who run for office, certainly mayor, lose) the odds were just against them.

This article attempts to do a deep dive into understanding why no woman has been elected mayor. Most of it is nonsense but it does make the case, as I've made before, that the city's insular political culture also plays a part. But in 2021, we may have a woman mayor, although, as of now, no one knows who that might be.

Stay tuned.