An ongoing topic in US politics is that of gender. Women remain largely underrepresented in political offices at all levels in the United States. In the current Congress out of the 535 seats, 150 are occupied by women. This equates to 28%. When we break this down into the two chambers in the legislative branch, we can see that of the 100 US senators 25 are women. In the House of Representatives of the 435 seats 125 are held by women.
In the Executive branch it is important to remember that of the 46 United States Presidents none have been women, and it is only in 2020 that the first woman was elected to the office of Vice President – Kamala Harris.
At the State level women hold 97 of the 310 state-wide executive offices, just over 30%. This includes a record high of 12 governors, and 22 lieutenant governors after the recent midterm elections of 2022.
In terms of the general population women make up approximately 51% of the US. However, according to a recent Pew poll only 53% of Americans think there are too few women in high political office in the US, this is down from the previous data.
Outside of these overall numbers when the women holding political office are explored with more depth it becomes evident that there are even greater issues of representation for women of colour. According to the Centre for American Women and Politics, and based on self-identification of the women, there is currently only one Black woman in the US Senate, one Latin woman and two women who identify as Asian American/Pacific Islander. The numbers for the House of Representatives are similarly low however they do include the first Native American women to be elected to federal office.
When breaking down the numbers of women in office it is clear that there are far more Democratic women that Republican, this has long been an issue for the Republican Party in that there are very few women, especially women of colour, elected by the party. The Republican Party is more conservative than the Democrats which could lead to more traditional gender stereotypes and norms which will hinder Republican women gaining votes but also being given the nominations for elections in the first place. A large barrier to greater representation for women in politics is the lack of Republican support for women candidates and is something the party will need to address moving forward.
In terms of the most prominent roles in US politics, currently most are held by men with the exception of Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Pro Tempore Patty Murray. However, with the loss of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leadership appears largely to be led by white men.
This matters when we think about the role women are playing in politics currently but also the importance of representation for women and young women across America. Vice President Kamala Harris has not been the prominent leader that many of her supporters had hoped for – although that could very soon change.
So why is there a gender disparity in political office holders? One argument to explain this is that women are still perceived as unsuited to such powerful, public roles. Role Congruity theory posits that there are two different types of traits; ‘agentic’ and ‘communal’. Agentic traits include those such as strength, aggression and authority. Communal include compassion, understanding and kindness. Stereotypically men are perceived and assumed to possess agentic traits; women communal.
When examining the expected traits of leadership, these largely fall into the agentic category and therefore men are assumed to have leadership-related traits, thus it follows that women are assumed to be less likely to have them.
Not only do women seeking political leadership have to contend with this perceived incongruence but they are also tasked with overcoming the ‘double-bind’: the need to show they possess the agentic traits required for leadership but also the communal attributes expected of them as women. Such a balancing act of character traits creates an extra barrier for women seeking political leadership to have to overcome.
Gender representation in all areas of politics is vital in order to encourage substantive representation within political institutions. Substantive representation means not only representing a group in terms of identity but importantly representing the interests of that group.
In terms of women gaining political representation, Professor Sarah Childs warned not to mistake women’s bodies for feminist minds. Such a warning can be applied to all areas of gender representation; having the bodies in office does not assure that meaningful representation of issues will follow. However, in order to increase policies and legislation that will define, protect, and defend all genders, research has shown electing members of those groups is necessary in order to raise such issues on the political agenda.
Words: Amy Tatum
Dr Amy Tatum is a lecturer in Communication and Media at Bournemouth University, her research explores gender and political leadership with a focus on US politics. She has published research on women political leaders, AI bias, and gender and media representation.
Featured image courtesy of Gage Skidmore