The amazing young women who are pictured above were part of the RepresentWomen team in 2020!
Dear friends and allies,
On this penultimate day of 2020 I am writing to ask you to consider supportingRepresentWomenwith a donation of any size so that we can build our capacity to make serious and sustained progress toward gender balance in politics in the coming decade.
As you know, our work is focused on identifyingthe structural barriers that women face as candidates and elected officials and then turning that research into policies that address those barriers so that more women can run, win, serve, and lead.
These systems strategies are what's electing more women to office - faster - in the nearly 70 countries that are ranked above the United States inwomen'srepresentation, and they offer a perfect complement to the workof many of youthat is focused on preparingindividual women to run for office.
In 2021, withyour support and partnership, we will provide lawmakers, votingsystem reformers, andwomen'srepresentationallies with legislative language, data, and policy recommendations designed to advancewomen'srepresentationand leadership in elected and appointed positions in the United States.
Here are highlights of what we accomplishedin 2020 that will fuel our work in 2021 and beyond:
We researchedthe structural barriers that women face as candidates and the best practices to get more women into office - faster, and published a number of reports & briefs, including:
- PACs & Donorsreport&case studies
- Ranked Choice Votingreport
- InternationalWomen'sRepresentationreport&dashboard
- Women and the presidencybrief
- Women in executive leadershipbrief
- Women'srepresentationon Tribal Nationsreport
- Incarceratedwomen'srights andrepresentationreport
- U.S. House expansionbrief
- Gender Parity Indexreport
- District designbrief
We communicatedabout our research via digitaland traditional media with a targeted audience of allies, journalists, academics, advocates, and elected officials. This work included:
- countless posts on social media platforms includingTwitter,LinkedIn,Facebook&Instagram
- numerous op-eds (here isa sample) and background conversations with journalists
- myweeklyblogonMs Magazine
- updates to ourwebsite
- a chapter inThe Best Candidate: Presidential Nomination in Polarized Times
We collaboratedwith partners in the democracy reform andwomen'srepresentationmovement, with campaigns for voting system reform, with theReflectUS Coalition, and with state groups around the country. Here is a testimonial from Jen Simon at theWyomingWomen'sAction Network:
Right now, I am working with several partners in Wyoming on two policy briefs--one aboutwomen'srepresentationand one aboutwomen'seconomic impact in Wyoming--and I would be unable to complete this work without RepresentWomen's research and materials.
And it is not just in my policy work that your research is indispensable. I use it with Cowgirl Run Fund--Wyoming's first PAC dedicated to electing more women from across the political spectrum--as well as refer to it in media interviews on a regular basis. I use it in my Equity State column in the Jackson Hole News&Guide. I use it for essays and policy briefs for the WyomingWomen'sAction Network.
I truly cannot imagine trying to work in a gender justice policy space without the groundwork that you and your team provide.
We committed to inclusionin 2020 through work withadiverse set of allies who span the ideological, racial, age, and geographic spectrum. I am determined to ensure that RepresentWomen board members, interns, staff, and strategic advisors reflect the diversity of American women.
We celebrated the centennial of suffragewith our 2020 calendar ofwomen leaders that we sent to every woman member of Congress, women on the Supreme Court, women governors & mayors, women college presidents, friends, and family. We hadn't anticipated that the calendar would be so popular - we had to order more copies to fill all the orders - and have enjoyed a wonderful array of thank you notes from many happy recipients!
Can we count on your support?Ihope that you willmake a donation to RepresentWomento support and expand our young, diverse team and help us to build our capacity to advocate for the systemic strategies that research tells us are the building blocks of a truly representative democracy.
Today marks the70th anniversary of my parents' wedding in thesame Quaker meetinghouse where my grandparents & great grandparents were married and where Iwasmarried half a century later...the title for the news clipping fromThe Washington Postsums up the era - "Philadelphia Girl, Huntington Terrell To Wed" - fortunately, we have made a lot of progress towardwomen'sequality over the last seventy years but there is still work to be done....
Equality can't wait.
Many thanks & happy new year,
Cynthia
P.S. The team at RepresentWomen created a weekly list of feminist must reads for adults and a less frequent series about feminist books for children:Ms Magazinewrote up our selectionsthat includesThee Hannah, a book written about my great great aunt Hannah Carter
