The Sunday evening at Brown Barn Tavern in Chesterland, Ohio, was one of the first times Katie Paris had spoken in public to a political audience. It won't be her last.
“The gender gap in politics has never been bigger than it is today,” Paris told a group of 30 name-tagged women in their 40s and 50s at a November meeting of the Like-Minded Geauga County Friends. “People in red counties are feeling alone — I get that. Well, we are here. I'm here to say, we are here for you.”
Paris, a 40-year-old mother of two living in Shaker Heights, an affluent Democratic stronghold on the fringe of Cuyahoga County, is talking about a new organizing trend emerging across the Midwest — but growing particularly rapidly in Ohio — of women emerging from the shadows as a political force.
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