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Women in Congress
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Women in Congress
In this course, Dr Tessa Ditonto (Durham University) explores the representation of women in the United States Congress. In the first module, we explore women’s representation in the US Congress, focusing in particular on the history of women’s representation in the US Congress and statistics on women presently serving in Congress as of 2022. Then, in the second module, we explore the various potential causes of women’s underrepresentation in the US Congress, focusing primarily on structural factors, the candidate emergence process, and the role of voter biases and stereotypes on the numbers of women serving in Congress. Finally, in the third module, we explore Hanna Pitkin’s concept of descriptive representation, and outline arguments for increasing the descriptive representation of women in the US Congress. This course is relevant to both the US Politics and Non-Core Political Ideas: Feminism sections of the AQA and Edexcel A Level Politics specifications.
Women in Congress
In this module we explore women’s representation in the US Congress, focusing in particular on: (i) the history of women’s representation in the US Congress and the history of women’s franchise rights; (ii) statistics on women in Congress as of 2022; (iii) the fact of women’s political underrepresentation in Congress; (iv) analysis of women in Congress as of 2022 when accounting for factors such as party, race, and ethnicity.
Hi.
00:00:05My name is Tessa de Tanto,
00:00:06and I'm an associate professor of gender and politics in
00:00:07the School of Government and international Affairs at Durham University.
00:00:10Um, today in this course,
00:00:13we're going to be talking about women's political representation in
00:00:14the United States with an emphasis on the U.
00:00:17S. Congress.
00:00:19So what does women's representation look like in the United States? Currently?
00:00:21Well, you may be aware that the United States has never had a female president.
00:00:25Um, currently the first female vice president is serving Kamala Harris,
00:00:29but there's never been a woman in the country's top political spot.
00:00:33Um,
00:00:38what you may not realise is that that lack of representation for women in politics
00:00:38extends across different levels of government and different
00:00:43branches of government throughout the United States.
00:00:47Um, so if we look specifically at Congress, remember,
00:00:50Congress is comprised of two different chambers.
00:00:53There's the House of Representatives and the Senate.
00:00:56And if we look at both of those chambers, um,
00:00:58we see a sort of under representation of women.
00:01:01So currently in the house there are 100 and 23 women
00:01:05serving that comprises 28% of the three of the 435 members.
00:01:09Um, in the Senate, there are currently 24 women serving.
00:01:16And, of course, that's 24% of the 100 members.
00:01:19So if we sort of average across Congress as a whole,
00:01:22we see that about a quarter of Congress is comprised of women currently.
00:01:25Now, of course, we compare that to the number of women in the population. Right?
00:01:30Women make up about 51% of the population in the United States.
00:01:34So we compare the number of women in the
00:01:38population to the number of women serving in office.
00:01:40Proportionally, we would say that women are underrepresented, right?
00:01:43If we had equal or equitable representation in US politics,
00:01:47we would see about 50 to 51% of seats in government occupied by women.
00:01:53But of course, we're nowhere near that, right?
00:01:58So women are underrepresented numerically right in US politics.
00:02:00Um, still, um,
00:02:06even though this is the case and it's been the case throughout the nation's history,
00:02:08currently there are more women serving than ever, right?
00:02:12So even though women are still underrepresented,
00:02:16we've seen sort of slow and steady progress over the years,
00:02:17and we have more women serving in office now
00:02:21that have ever been serving at one time before.
00:02:23Um,
00:02:25so up until 1992 there were really only very small numbers
00:02:26of women serving in either the House or the Senate.
00:02:30Really never more than 30 to 40 at a time, 1992 came along,
00:02:33which is known in the gender and politics literature as the Year of the Woman,
00:02:38because in 1992 a large number of women were elected to Congress. Really?
00:02:42For the first time ever.
00:02:47Um,
00:02:48so never since 1992 we've seen a relatively slow but a much sort
00:02:49of steadier progression of numbers of women who have been elected to office.
00:02:54Um, and we've seen bigger jumps in recent years as well, especially since 2016,
00:03:00the 2016 presidential election,
00:03:05the 2018 midterm election and the 2020
00:03:06presidential election have all seen larger numbers
00:03:10of women both running for office and then being elected to office as well.
00:03:13So, yes, women are underrepresented, but it is progressing right.
00:03:17We're seeing more and more women elected every year.
00:03:22Now it is important also to think about not just
00:03:25sort of total numbers of women who are elected.
00:03:29But looking at women, um, as sort of subgroups, right?
00:03:31So which women are being elected?
00:03:34Well, if we look at it by political party,
00:03:36which is a very important sort of way to
00:03:39look at political representation in the United States because political
00:03:41party is a super important way that Americans organise their
00:03:45political life and their understanding of the political world.
00:03:51Um, so if we look at political party
00:03:54a numbers of women serving by political party,
00:03:57we see a massive difference between the two parties.
00:03:59So while we've seen steady progression in terms
00:04:03of the numbers of women serving in Congress,
00:04:06um,
00:04:08that has really been sort of one sided and really only been in the Democratic Party.
00:04:08Um,
00:04:13so women are far more likely to be elected from the
00:04:14Democratic Party than they are by from the Republican Party.
00:04:16Um, And so right now, for example, right,
00:04:2090 of the 123 women serving in the House of Representatives are Democrats, um,
00:04:22and only 33 Republicans in the Senate.
00:04:28The numbers are similar.
00:04:32Um,
00:04:3316 of the women of the 24 women serving
00:04:34in the Senate are Democrats and eight Republicans,
00:04:37right?
00:04:40So you can see there's certainly some sort of a lack of equality
00:04:41in terms of where these women are being elected from party wise.
00:04:43Um, and this progress over time that I've mentioned, right, especially since 1992.
00:04:48This progress over time has really been quite lopsided as well,
00:04:53and been almost exclusively in the Democratic
00:04:57Party as opposed to the Republican Party.
00:04:59Um,
00:05:02this trend is even more stark if we sort of
00:05:02look a bit closer at women of colour in particular.
00:05:04Um, so women of colour also are underrepresented in political office,
00:05:07but also we've seen numbers of women of colour rising over the years as well.
00:05:12But again,
00:05:16this is happening almost exclusively in the
00:05:17Democratic Party and not the Republican Party.
00:05:19So right now, there are more women of colour serving in office than ever before.
00:05:22There are currently 51 in Congress,
00:05:25but only six of those are in the Republican Party,
00:05:27and the rest are in the Democratic Party.
00:05:30So while we are seeing this trend of increasing representation over time, it is, um,
00:05:32it's not across the board, and it's really exclusive to, um, one party over time
00:05:38
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Ditonto, T. (2022, August 25). Women in Congress - Women in Congress [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/us-politics-women-in-congress
MLA style
Ditonto, T. "Women in Congress – Women in Congress." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 25 Aug 2022, https://massolit.io/courses/us-politics-women-in-congress