Filling the Female Political Pipeline: Assessing a Mentor-Based Internship Program

Many women are considered viable candidates to hold political office but choose not to run for various reasons. One of those reasons is that they do not see the characteristics in themselves that they determine necessary to be a successful politician. For the past five years, the Intern Fellowship Program at Simmons College has matched young women with female state legislators in Massachusetts. This article will discuss how this internship program has changed the perception of the women that participate in the program; they now see themselves as potential political players, both at the state and national level. Through interviews and quantitative assessment of alums, I will demonstrate that this type of mentoring internship program is a successful way to increase the number of women in the political pipeline because of their post-graduation job and graduate school choices that in turn continues them on the pathway to political office. Keywords: genderinternshipspolitical leadershiprunning for officeviability Notes Simmons College is a nationally recognized private university located in the heart of Boston. It offers an undergraduate education for women, and renowned coeducational graduate programs in health sciences, education, liberal arts, social work, library and information science, and communications management, as well as the nation's first MBA program designed specifically for women.