A global look at Gender and politics in the United States of America shows a gross disparity in the representation of women and men. Statistics show that men make up 3/4 of governors, 3/4 of senators, 3/4 of mayors, over 70% of members of Congress, 67 %of state legislators, 67% of municipal officeholders.
In the House of Representatives, women currently make up only 15% of the Republican House delegation; 40% of the Democratic House; only 18 % of the Republican Senate delegation; 31% of the Democratic state delegation. This indicates that the inequalities in women’s representation in politics are really structured by partisanship in the U.S.
Little interest in women
Over the years it has been observed that there are a very minimal number of women interested in politics or even running for Senate in the US.
During the Foreign Press Center virtual briefing series with Diana, she told journalists that this could be as a result of “a combination of supply – women’s willingness to run for office – and demand” leading to the question, do voters want to support women candidates, do political elites want to support women candidates?.
“So it is the case in the U.S. that men express more nascent political ambition than women. So men are more likely to say that they’ve thought about running for office even if they don’t consider themselves qualified to do so. Even very well-qualified women are less likely to say that they’ve thought about running for office” O’Brien said, indicating an ambition gap.
Women’s Challenges
One of the major challenges women willing to run for office face is limited resources necessary to run for office. “women have less wealth, less time, less access to the political networks that can help them get a jumpstart on fundraising” O’Brien highlighted.
It’s also the case that women receive less encouragement to run. They receive less encouragement to run from friends and family and nonpolitical sources, but they also receive less encouragement to run from political sources, and it is the case that political elites are less likely to recruit women as candidates.
The solution to this global problem which is a reality in most countries according to Diana is requesting ‘gender quotas’ where parties will be required to run with women candidates.
But in the U.S. the combination of primaries as a method for candidate selection plus the political culture makes it unlikely that they are going to be able to implement a quota policy anytime soon.
Statistics also reveal that on the one hand, women vote more and the other hand, men do all sorts of political behaviors at higher rates.
Getting more women in politics
Increasing the number of women in politics requires that parties elect and recruit more women and in the US this needs to be applied more specifically with the Republican Party and also ensure women get the money they need.
Another measure is getting more women to vote or getting women to engage in other types of political behavior, will help in lowering barriers.
In the US, like all over the world, women are responsible for second shift work, they do more house work, have less free time, less money. Therefore getting women to make those structural changed so they have more of the resources they need will go a long way to boost their engagement.
Another strategy employed is, women organizing both to run for office but also for social movement, organizing around shifting abortion policy, and so continuing to mobilize women around issue that are salient to them.
Eliminating some of the stereotypes in the US about the types of positions and policy areas that women are a good fit for, will help get more women involved.
Some include the fact that people believe women are better at some issues-like handling education, healthcare, issues related to women, but they believe that men are more competent at handling issues like national security and defense.
Enter Diana O’Brien
Diana O’Brien is the Bela Kornitzer Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research and teaching focuses on the causes and consequences of women’s political representation in high-income democracies, including Western Europe and the United States, as well as across the globe. Her areas of study are gender and political parties, legislative and executive branch politics, as well as citizen responses to women’s presence in politics.
This article is from the Virtual Election Briefing Series for American and Foreign journalists organized by the Foreign Press Center ahead of the upcoming 2024 Presidential elections in the United States of America.