At the rate we're going, it will take another 100 years before women attain something approaching equal representation in this democracy (sic). Given the dramatic increase in registered Democratic voters this year, along with a tsunami of righteous anger about the misogynistic treatment of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sarah Palin, this could be a record year for women. Much of it will be on the coattails of Barack Obama since, as always, the vast majority of women who actually make it onto the ballot are Democrats.
This could be the election that boosts women's shamefully inadequate and undemocratic representation up to almost one fifth of Congress. Perhaps it will also boost the U.S.'s pathetic rank of 69 in the world in the number of women elected to Congress up to 68 or 67. Woo. Hoo. I won't be throwing any big parties celebrating the snail's pace of women's progress in this alleged democracy, but there it is.
Women could pick up as many as 13 seats on Election Day:
WASHINGTON -- Nominations of female congressional candidates may have fallen off this year, but the field promises to produce the best showing since 1992, when women nearly doubled their ranks in the House and Senate.
"This is the most positive I've ever felt about these races," said Gilda Morales, a researcher at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, a leading think tank for women and elections. "Although we don't have as many women candidates as we did in prior years, the women that are running are really seasoned campaigners."
At the same time, Hillary Clinton's groundbreaking race for her party's presidential nomination and the appointment of Sarah Palin on the GOP vice presidential ballot may also make it easier for voters to vote for a woman. "There isn't a stigma or a newness for women running for office," Morales said. "People see this is normal. These are the way things should be."
This year Morales predicts women -- who currently hold 87 of the 535 seats in Congress, or about 16 percent -- could pick up as many as 13 seats on Election Day. That means women's share of the House could reach 19 percent, near the 20 percent that political scientist Sue Thomas identified more than a decade ago as a tipping point. In a study of 12 state legislatures Thomas found that when women held at least 1 in 5 state legislative seats, they were more likely to sponsor and push forward women-friendly legislation such as funding for domestic violence shelters and stricter child-support laws.
Marie Wilson, head of the White House Project, a nonpartisan organization in New York that works to elect women to all levels of office, sets that "critical mass" bar higher, at 33 percent. That's closer to women's percentages in legislatures in Scandinavian nations, which have typically led the world in working toward gender equality.
The most likely female gains in these elections are in the House of Representatives, where 71 women currently serve. Four women -- including Ohio Rep. Deborah Pryce, the highest ranking Republican woman in Congress -- are retiring this year. One other, Democrat Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio, died earlier this year.
Feminist Politics Gender News Equality Male Domination Misogyny Patriarchy Hillary Clinton Sexism Barack Obama Sarah Palin
