Op-Eds
August 3, 2024
Excerpted from RepresentWomen’s 2024 Gender Parity Index: Is Progress to Parity Stagnating? by Courtney Lamendola and Steph Scaglia on Ms. magazine, August 3, 2024:
RepresentWomen this month published its 11th annual Gender Parity Index, a comprehensive measure of women’s representation at the national, state and local levels of government. Its findings show progress toward gender balance is slow and possibly even stagnating.
The Gender Parity Index, first launched in 2013, awards each of the 50 states a score (0-100), letter grade (A-F), and ranking (1-50) based on that state’s proximity to gender parity. A perfect score is 50/100. Eleven years ago, 40 states earned “D” grades (< 25.0 points) or “F” grades (< 10.0 points), and the remaining 10 states were split evenly between “C” grades (< 33.0) and “B” grades (< 50.0). No state earned an “A” grade until New Hampshire from 2015-2018, and then again in 2020.
This year, Oregon and Maine received “A” grades for the second time, but the case of New Hampshire shows the importance of tracking representation over time. Despite Oregon and Maine’s success, the majority of states earned “D” grades, and the remaining twenty-two states earned “B” and “C” grades. For the first time ever, no state received a failing grade. Louisiana, the only state to receive an “F” for eight years straight (2016-2023), made major gains, electing its first woman Attorney General, Liz Murril, and second woman Secretary of State, Nancy Landry.
Read the full article here.
.jpg)
