Guest Editorial: A need for more women in local politics

(Editor’s note: Recently, former Mayor Karen Majewski spoke at the Hamtramck Historical Museum regarding a presentation on “Women of Hamtramck.” Here are her comments.)

By Karen Majewski
You know, when I was first asked to run for elected office, for City Council in 2003, I was recruited exactly BECAUSE my colleagues were looking for a WOMAN to add to the slate. I won the most votes in that election and became city council president, then two years later ran for mayor and became our first WOMAN mayor.
But the only reason I achieved those offices was because there was already a recognition that WOMEN did well in Hamtramck politics—and in the days since Mary Zuk paved the way, there was an existing legacy of women serving on city council, and especially as heads of city council — I myself learned from former President Kathy Kristy.
In fact, as soon as the women of Michigan earned the right to vote — by a state constitutional amendment in 1918, The Women of Hamtramck Civic Committee was formed, to register women to vote.
So although women candidates tended to do well in Hamtramck, at least from the 1930s on, it’s worth remembering that women make up 50% — or slightly more — of our population, yet I never served with more than one other woman in elected office, and often was the ONLY woman in elected office in the city (not counting school board).
There were many meetings of organizations in which I was the only woman on the dais, the only woman given a speaking role, and sometimes the only woman in the room, period, including the audience. We see now a city council made up entirely of men.
So when we talk about diversity, and when Hamtramck is celebrated for its so called diversity, we ought to be pointing out that diversity can be parsed in different ways, and when 50% of the population is NOT part of the public face of the city, there is a gap that we should be making it a priority to fill.
(And that’s not even considering other categories of diversity like African American political representation—a subject I touch on in my 2022 article on the history of Polish politics in Hamtramck in Polish American Studies)
In order to fill that gap, I also want to stress that I never would have run for office if I hadn’t been recruited, if I hadn’t been begged, in fact. And that’s an issue I see with women in general when it comes to elected office. We often don’t imagine ourselves in that kind of leadership role.
We’re very good at community organizing, at creating local structures to address particular community needs, at making the machinery work behind the scenes.
There is evidence for that in the many local women’s organizations that came and mostly went over the years, organizations like the African American Women’s Civic Club of Hamtramck of the 1930s.
We see their legacy in today’s Concerned Women of Hamtramck. And there’s no shortage of contemporary examples in Hamtramck: the weekly food kitchen at Queen of Apostles church, Friendship House, J&E Community Relief, Hamtramck Mutual Aid, the Piast Institute, Plaguedoctor Trashman, and so many more. (And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my hope that for a future discussion on Hamtramck women business owners throughout our history.)
As women we need to become comfortable with being the public face and the voice of our communities. As Greg (Kowalski, director of the Hamtramck Historical Museum) pointed out in the case of Mary Zuk, that can mean particular, misogynistic and sexist scrutiny of our personal lives.
It can mean dismissal of our political stances, especially when we speak forcefully and unapologetically — in other words, when we’re more than smiling tokens on the stage. But if women have shown anything over the generations, it’s that we can be fearless, and that we can fight, behind the scenes or at the front, subtly or stridently.
There’s lots more I could talk about, including the article I published in 2021 on instances of abortion in Hamtramck before Roe v. Wade — a hidden part of women’s and family history. But I think I’ll leave you with the playful but empowering words of the song the city FATHERS tried to ban in 1940, “Hamtramck Mama”:

“YOU CAN TELL HER NOT TO DO IT
BUT SHE’LL DO IT JUST THE SAME
SHE’S A HAMTRAMCK BABY
THAT NO MAN CAN TAME
SHE’S A HAMTRAMCK MAMA
AND SHE SURE DOES KNOW HER STUFF”

Published March 31, 2023