By Lexi Long

Sahiba Gafarova

In a March 2020 vote, representatives of the National Assembly elected Sahiba Gafarova to be Azerbaijan’s first woman Speaker of the Assembly. While Azerbaijan was the first Muslim-majority state to grant women the right to vote and stand for election in 1918, the government has struggled to empower women to successfully run and win seats at both the federal and local levels.

The launch of the "Yes on 1" campaign Summer 2019, Photo Source: RepresentWomen

On Tuesday, ranked choice voting (RCV) returned to New York City - putting an end to a 74 year hiatus of the voting system. Following the success of the “Yes on 1” ballot measure in November 2019, ranked choice voting will be used for the first time since 1947 in NYC to fill a Queen’s city council seat that has been vacant since November 2020. In the coming months, ranked choice voting will also be used in at least four local elections and the highly-contested New York City mayoral primary in June.

President Biden's proposed Cabinet would have 24 members. Assuming the newly Democratic Senate confirms all of his nominees, a process that got started last week, it would be the most diverse Cabinet in history and the first to reach gender balance.

Women achieve the highest representation in the history of the Egyptian parliament.  

By Fatma Tawfik

The promise of a Joe Biden presidency was a return to normalcy, but 62 seconds of Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony were quietly revolutionary. Not the soar of Amanda Gorman’s poem, or the thunderous power of Lady Gaga using a golden microphone to belt the national anthem. In a ceremony filled with artistic creations specifically designed to arouse emotions of patriotism and pride, the 62 seconds that did so most effectively were from a bland, scripted oath of office, administered with the same exchange of words for more than a hundred years. But never between two women.

“Please raise your right hand and repeat after me,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor instructed soon-to-be Vice President Kamala D. Harris. And Harris did.

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (L) delivers remarks after U.S. President-elect Joe Biden (R) announced her as his Commerce Secretary nominee at The Queen theater on January 08, 2021 in Wilmington, Delaware.

President-elect Joe Biden on Friday introduced key nominees for his economic and jobs team, including Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo for commerce secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh for labor secretary.

Despite historic numbers for women, Congress continues to fall far short of gender balance.

infogram_0_e94cf977-11b9-4c94-9393-b66afa5cdf4fWOC 117th Congressional Counter -https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed.js?yuBtext/javascript