My name is Bobbie Bell, an outreach and advocacy intern for the fall 2020 semester at RepresentWomen.  I am from Brooklyn, New York, aka “the big apple,” where I am pursuing my bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Media Studies at Brooklyn College.  Currently an upper senior, I intend on graduating from Brooklyn College in December of this year.   Over the course of the summer, I had the chance to run a period drive in my own community, collecting numerous donations for women in need during the pandemic.  Although running a period drive virtually due to the coronavirus, I found creative ways to gain support.  

Hi all! My name is Ashley Huang and I’m from San Diego, CA. My pronouns are she/her. Although I’m on a gap year right now, I’m a rising sophomore at Swarthmore College studying Economics and Art History. As a Research Intern, I’m super excited to contribute towards RepresentWomen’s incredible work this fall.

Hello! My name is Arria Alton and I am a Nonprofit Admin and Development Intern for RepresentWomen. Currently, I am a senior at Vanderbilt University studying Human and Organizational Development with a concentration in Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness. I’m originally from Madison, Wisconsin, where I spent the last six months in quarantine with my family; this resulted in a renewed sense of hometown pride and the return of my Midwestern accent.

My name is Andrea Esquetini and I am a senior at the University of California, Davis, where I am majoring in Communications and minoring in Political Science and Professional Writing. In college, I have spent much of my time writing for local papers and producing videos for campus departments. I love this kind of work, and in the future I hope to continue producing media that has an impact and tells stories that would otherwise go untold. 

My name is Alise Blūma, and I am a Communications Intern at RepresentWomen. Born and raised in a small Northern European country called Latvia, in 2018 I packed my life up in two suitcases and began my journey towards a Bachelor's Degree in Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Tampa. 

Hi! My name is Alisha Saxena and I am a senior at the University of California, San Diego, with a major in Political Science-Public Law and a minor in African American Studies. I am currently a Research Intern with the fabulous RepresentWomen team, working remotely from the Bay Area! Though I have been in California for eight years, I spent most of my childhood in Columbia, South Carolina- although its history isn’t great, it is definitely a beautiful place!

Even if a record number of women win next Tuesday, the U.S. will still fall short of gender parity at the national and state levels and very few states are primed to reach an “A” grade for women’s representation. 

The highlights from our 2020 Gender Parity Index include:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern accepted her landslide reelection win Saturday with a message for her country and the rest of the world: “We are living in an increasingly polarized world, a place where more and more people have lost the ability to see one another’s point of view. I hope that this election, New Zealand has shown that this is not who we are. That as a nation, we can listen and we can debate. After all, we are small to lose sight of other people’s perspective. Elections aren’t always great at bringing people together, but they also don’t need to tear one another apart.”

Ardern, the 40-year-old leader of New Zealand’s social democratic Labour Party, did not explicitly mention the highest-profile election of this fall. But it was hard not to recognize in her victory speech a nod to voters in the United States, especially when she said, “This has not been an ordinary election and it’s not an ordinary time. It’s been full of uncertainty and anxiety. And we set out to be an antidote to that.