By Pam Platt  Louisville Courier-Journal – Hillary Rodham Clinton took the opportunity of a Valentine’s Day speech to impart some important advice for women aspiring to politics or public life. What she told an audience for No Ceilings, a project of the Clinton and Gates foundations to empower women, wasn’t all hearts and flowers:

“One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever heard from anyone is from Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1920s, who said that women in politics or in public roles should grow skin like a rhinoceros,” she said. “I think there is some truth to that.”

That’s especially true if you plan to run for president of the United States, as many are presuming Clinton will do; so far, she’s staying mum.

Regardless of the suggested hide, others hoping to stoke the numbers of women running for public office are undertaking initiatives similar to that of the Clinton and Gates foundations, and “Raising Ms. President,” a documentary by Kiley Lane Parker that will be shown Tuesday at the Brown Theatre in Louisville, takes a look at those efforts, as well as some of the reasons for them.

A nifty, interactive map produced by the National Conference of State Legislatures (ncsl.org) starkly demonstrates why such efforts in grooming women candidates and raising consciousness are needed.

Although there are more women voters in the United States than men, far, far fewer women serve in statehouses. No state approaches 50 percent female representation; only three have a third or more women as state representatives and senators; the vast majority have 15 percent to 34 percent (Kentucky is at 18 percent; Indiana at 20).

One of the points of “Raising Ms. President” is that we can do better — and we must do better. It’s quite startling to realize how far back the U.S., a beacon of democracy and equality throughout the world, lags when it comes to women in elective office.

via Pam Platt | Nation must get more women to run for office | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com.