Instead of recapping the election (at this point, I can virtually recite every swing county), I decided to look at the recent election from a gender/sex lens including the progress that has been made and the infinite progress that is still needed. With the decision of the 2020 election and Kamala Harris being the first woman and woman of color to become the Vice President-elect, there has been incredible excitement for what this moment means for the representation of women and BIPOC and the overall racial and gender diversity within the government. I was similarly intrigued and was interested to take a deep dive into the current state of diversity within the government.
I came across a fascinating article that explained that this elected Congress, what will be the 117th Congress, is going to have the most women in history. But what exactly does that mean? This means 131 women will be in the next Congress, which is 4 more than the previous record of 127 set in 2019. To begin with, as a Missouri resident, it was promising to see the first black woman, Cori Bush, represent Missouri in the House of Representatives, the first Korean-American woman to represent Washington State in the Senate, and the first time that all the people that will represent New Mexico in the House are all women of color. Gains were also made for the LGBTQ+ community with the election of the first trans senator from Delaware, Sarah McBride and the first black gay congressman Ritchie Torres to represent New York. These gains are to be celebrated, yet we need to continue to dive into the root cause.
It has been known that Congress has members that are disproportionally whiter, wealthier, older, cisgender male, and heterosexual in comparison to the US population. For the focus of today's post, I wanted to zoom in on gender diversity as the intersectionality component makes this discussion even more complicated. As the statistics above suggest, women are nowhere close to making up an equal proportion to the Congress: they only represent under one-quarter of congresspeople. Although the Democratic party has more women and women of color representing their party (with only one woman of color representing the Republican Party from New Mexico), this should be a bipartisan concern as issues of reproductive justice and women's health are some of the largest issues our country faces. In addition, not only do these issues require the opinions of women, but instead all domestic and foreign affairs issues need to be looked at from the lens of all genders, including individuals that do not identify using the gender binary (for which there is virtually no representation in all levels of government), to ensure policies that are in concordance with the desires and support the true majority of the American people. With the necessity for increased gender diversity within the government understood, it brings up the question as to why representation is so disproportionate and unrepresentative of the demographics of the US population.
The US government was created by a group of incredibly homogenous people with no diversity across socioeconomic status, education, race, gender orientation, or sexual orientation. Although we have made progress since then, many barriers from the initial formation of our government have impeded our progress towards a more representative government. This is primarily because of extraordinarily high congressional reelection rates at around 90%. Due to an increased financial backing for incumbents' reelection campaigns and districts that have been historically drawn to favor incumbents, only around 30% of congressional elections in 2018 were mildly competitive (this was extrapolated from a study analyzing 253 congressional elections after the primaries in June 2020). The design of the electoral system in the United States is largely the reason for slowing the speed of increasing physical diversity and diversity of thought in Congress and the federal government generally. This is not only concerning from a gender standpoint as this design facilitates the prevention of the new voices that may be more representative of the demands of the American people from entering policymaking.
An interesting supplementary thought I had when collecting the research for this article was regarding a previous article I had read about the vice presidential debate. One of the highlights of the debate was Kamala Harris's "I'm speaking" line numerous times when Vice President Pence interrupted her. One of the discussions was whether gender played a role in the interruptions, and it was found that Harris was interrupted twice as often as Pence. Pence ultimately ended up with 3 more minutes of speaking time compared to Harris. This brought up the larger conversation of interruptions being different across gender lines in personal and professional spheres. Studies have supported the notion that people tend to interrupt female speakers at higher rates than their male counterparts, and this distinction exists at even the highest level of government, the Supreme Court, at alarming rates. With this idea, I have been reflecting on my own life and anecdotally support the trend. For me, the logical follow-up is "How can we, societally, work to remove these barriers that inadvertently and/or deliberately restrict women's and LGBTQ+ individuals' voices in government and all facets of our lives?"
If you are interested, please check out the articles I have attached in this post for further information and reading on this topic. I am excited to hear your ideas!
Thanks for reading,
Janvi
As always, you have penned down another thought provoking article of universal interest. This phenomenon of gender inequality in the government machinery, corporates and all types of other institutions is not so unique to USA; as a matter of fact it is prevalent all over the world, perhaps even more so in third world countries, with Europe being no exception. One has always wondered as to why is it so. Is it the biological factors or may be the prevailing patriarchal systems existing in most parts; or is it that some historical factors play a role in some ways? Surprisingly, in India we do have certain States practicing matriarchal family systems, but even there male domination in political governance is all pervasive. Indian history and mythology, including all cultural & religion based documents, provides an insight in to the original status of men and women as total equality, and even a higher position for women in the society.
ReplyDeleteAs the saying goes, women are from Venus and the men are from Mars; which planet and its "habitants" are stronger? Women are said to be mentally stronger than the physically stronger men. Both are considered to be incomplete without the other, but even then the gender inequalities remain pronounced. Perhaps these deep rooted causes and its effects need to be researched with a microscope and taken care of in toto if a social parity is to be achieved.
Weldon Janvi for bringing forth a subject, generally neglected or overlooked, perhaps again due to the existing male dominance., whereby almost half of World's population awaits its rightful place in the sun.
Thank you so much! I think you bring up some very interesting points. One of the things that is often overlooked is the complexity of topics of gender across cultures. Depending on unique historical circumstance and deep-rooted social and religious beliefs, the relationship between various genders is unique. The ideas of gender norms have evolved and changed significantly, and dissecting the cultural differences is critical to continue changing the conversation across the globe.
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