In the News
April 22, 2022
This article by Sara Luterman published by The 19th cites RepresentWomen's research about ages of women in politics compared to men. Read an excerpt below.
Expectations for women candidates are also higher. They may need to accomplish more before being encouraged to run for office — much less be successful in winning office, experts said. That can mean they are older when they run for — and win — office.
“For women, to run a successful campaign, they are evaluated differently. Even when she’s [been elected] she has to work twice as hard to be seen as half as qualified,” Chod told The 19th.
In 1991, the median age for a U.S. senator was 56.5. After a surge of women joined Congress in the 1992 election, that number jumped to 58. Chod attributes some of that change to the influx of women that year. Feinstein first ran for national office in 1992, when she was 59 years old. Her children had all finished school by then.
Things are changing for women in politics. In 2018, a small group of women members of Congress founded an informal Moms in the House caucus. That same year, Sen. Tammy Duckworth became the first woman senator to give birth while in office. Currently, 25 members of Congress are women with school-age children. On average, however, women are still older than men in the Senate, House of Representatives and at the state level, according to Represent Women, a nonprofit seeking parity for women in politics.
Read the complete article on The 19th.
