By: Richard Kaufman
Politics in recent years, both at the local and national level, has divided people in unprecedented ways. But a group in Greenwich is dedicated to blocking out the noise of personal attacks and unsubstantiated claims on both sides of the aisle, by focusing on facts and good old fashioned civil discourse.
Following an unpleasant election season in 2018, Greenwich resident Allyson Cowin, a former policy analyst, decided to get involved again on the issues facing the state of Connecticut — most notably on fiscal policy issues — after she retired in 2000 to raise her children.
Cowin spoke with Icy Frantz, another Greenwich resident whom she has known for several years, to see what could be done. Frantz, a writer, helped start the Arch Street Teen Center and has sat on various executive boards. Her husband, Scott, is a former State Senator for the 36th District.
“We needed to bring some civility back and discuss issues, as opposed to personal attacks and hurting people,” Cowin said. “We wanted to bring people together. It’s something I had wanted to do since I worked in public policy for 15 years. Icy and I were talking about what we could do to bring our community together and discuss the issues in a civil, pleasant, happy and nice way.”
Shortly after their discussion, CT Women United was born. The group is geared towards giving women with more conservative views a home, while allowing everyone with differing political views to get involved and have a civil discourse.
“We became a women’s organization, but we welcome men. We want men involved. We put women in our title because women don’t often get involved in these things,” said Cowin. “It’s all about a dialogue and being positive and upbeat and trying to come up with solutions instead of yelling and screaming at each other.”
Frantz said that because of the political climate, it was very hard to have conversations and dialogue without people getting angry or judgemental.
“We felt the mainstream media wasn’t always giving the whole story, and that there was a kind of a quieting of voices of people who have similar opinions to us, almost to the point where people are almost embarrassed to admit they were a conservative Republican,” Frantz said. “We kind of wanted to also have a community where people could share more openly, and feel like there were other people who have similar feelings on how we spend our money, what kind of taxes we should have, what our budget should look like.”
Emily Bajus, a resident of New Canaan, knew Cowin since their daughters both went to Greenwich Academy. She joined CT Women United a few months after it began. Bajus is originally from Texas, and has a background in Information Technology.
The group has turned into a labor of love for the three women. “We’re all volunteers. We do this because we care and we love it,” Cowin said.
CT Women United stays away from social issues because they tend to be the most polarizing. Instead, they try to focus on the fiscal problems facing the state.
“We’re about coming together on issues we can agree on, and giving a place to people like us who are fiscally conserative,” Cowin said. “We believe in low taxes, low regulations, low spending, the smallest government possible that still protects us and still gets things done. We feel there’s a lot of women like us out there who just need a voice and want a place to get involved.”
CT Women United has held different events and forums since forming in 2018, ranging from discussions about the real estate market and how to get involved in local government, to conversations with local candidates on the issues facing the state.
Their event on how to get involved with local government in Greenwich inspired a large number of women to run for seats on the Representative Town Meeting last year.
On their website, ctwomenunited.org, there’s a wide swath of articles from different mainstream sources on national and local issues. The intent is to give the reader the information as point, counterpoint from both sides of the aisle so that an informed decision can be made.
“Even though we do have a relatively moderate, with perhaps a sort of conservative-tinge point of view on things, we want to be very level-headed and balanced,” Bajus said.
The three women agreed that affordability in the state, education, keeping people safe/policing, and zoning are a few of the most important issues facing Connecticut right now.
“All we ask is for people to get engaged, learn and vote,” Cowin added.
There is also a free newsletter, highlighting different articles or pertinent issues, that gets emailed regularly.
Cowin noted that the group doesn’t like to label anything as Republican or Democrat.
“There’s no such thing as black and white. It’s gray, and trying to find a middle ground,” she said.
“When you really attach labels to a lot of things, it’s very limiting,” added Frantz.
After the election, CT Women United hopes to keep the dialogue and healthy debate going by maybe bringing in special speakers on Zoom to talk about education reform, or a police officer who can touch on the state’s new police accountability bill.
The group also talked about the idea of starting a book or movie club.
“There is a sense of community for women in our town that deal with politics and writing letters and making calls and being an activist. That’s not who we are,” Cowin said. “The sky’s the limit for us. We’d like to really become a place for people to come hang out.”
The more voices that are involved, the better.
“We want as many voices as we can get. The best community is created when the most experiences, the most thoughts, and the most backgrounds are represented,” Bajus said.
Bajus hopes CT Women United can serve as a healing tool for people once the election is over.
“I feel that people on all sides of the aisle, no matter where you are politically, have been feeling very anxious, just about all of the division and anger out there from many different fronts. I think a lot of people are ready for this election to be over. Hopefully we can start to heal. I’d love for CT Women United to be a place where we can all come and find what our connections and common grounds are,” Bajus added.
“America is better than what we are right now. We’re far better. We need to get back to working together and for each of us, as opposed to against each other,” she said.
For more information, go to ctwomenunited.org, or head to Instagram @ctwomenunited, and Facebook at CTWomenUnited.
