Women represent 51% of the U.S. population. So why do they represent less than a third of the nation's elected leaders?
Recent research confirms that the longstanding gender gap in political ambition continues, with women being far less likely than men to consider running for office. Even more so, women with children are in the minority.
According to the Vote Mama Foundation's State of Motherhood report, 85% of American women are mothers by the time they're 45 years old. Yet only 23% of state legislators are moms, and only 5% are moms with children under 18. By comparison, nearly 18% of people in the U.S. are mothers with kids under 18. In order to achieve full representation, Vote Mama says Americans need to elect 926 more moms with young children to state legislatures.
"American policies were not designed to support mothers because our policies were not crafted by them," Liuba Grechen Shirley, founder and CEO of Vote Mama, said in the report. "Moms know the challenges that women, kids, and working families face at a visceral level. However, we're often unheard because we are systemically kept out of the conversation, out of office, and out of power. We're missing a critical voice at the decision-making table."
When Grechen Shirley ran for a New York congressional seat in 2018, then a mother of two young children, she was constantly asked about who was taking care of her kids while she campaigned.
"Men don't get asked that question. Men are praised if they bring their children with them," Grechen Shirley told NPR. "But when a woman shows up with her child, she's immediately looked at as somebody who is not fully dedicated to the cause, and who does not have the time to run."
Recently, women's organizations have made it a priority to recruit women to run for office, and famous female politicians are increasing attention to women's under-representation. According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, a record number of women are nominees for governor and state legislatures this year.
Even so, the Center for Effective Lawmaking points out that these changes and efforts haven't been sufficient to change society's broader attitudes about women's place in electoral politics.
"We operate in a world where people see men as candidates. And men see themselves that way," the center noted. "Women – even those who are highly educated, well-credentialed, and politically engaged – often do not."
According to the center's Gender Gap in Political Ambitions report, beyond being more likely than men to doubt their broad qualifications to run for office, women are also much more likely than men to doubt they possess several important candidate characteristics. The report shows that 72% of men, but only 48% of women, rate themselves as "qualified" or "very qualified" to run for office -- and that women are more than three times as likely as men to say they're "not at all qualified" to run.
The gender gaps are staggering, according to the report. When potential candidates were asked to assess their politically-relevant traits, 42% of men said someone like them would have a leg up running for office while just 28% of women feel the same. Meantime, 72% of women said someone like them would have a hard time.
In terms of policy knowledge, the report shows 80% of men, but only 54% of women, consider themselves very knowledgeable. Additionally, 62% of men think they have "the look of a successful candidate," while 57% of women think their "looks would be criticized" if they ran for office. Women were also more likely to contemplate whether of not they had "thick enough skin" to run for office: 64% versus 41% of men who think the same.
"Politics remains a game for men," the report states. "Even when matched in terms of profession, income, education, and political engagement, men continue to be much more interested than women in running for elective office."
Recently, She Should Run, a nonpartisan lead-finding organization for future ballots, made a commitment to see 250,000 women run for office by 2030.
"As the field of women's political leadership continues to mature, we have a responsibility to narrow our focus with urgency to reach the women who have been historically left out - and who haven't even considered the possibility of holding public office," Erin Loos Cutraro, founder and CEO, said in a statement. "These are the voices our future demands, and it's our duty to help women see that for themselves."
With all the ongoing efforts, the tides are changing even if it might be slowly, University of Virginia politics professor Jennifer Lawless told NPR.
"I think we're seeing candidates embrace their parental roles and make the case that it's because they have children and because they're mothers, that they have unique experiences that position them to better represent a large portion of their constituents," Lawless said.
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