This week marks the 177th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, where abolitionists, Quakers, and community members gathered for the first women’s rights conference in the United States. This two-day convention resulted in the Declaration of Sentiments that over one hundred women signed calling for equity between men and women, a woman’s right to own property, divorce, cast a ballot, and more. Here is an excerpt:
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her…
Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, - in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.
In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.
Statue of suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B, Anthony, & Lucretia Mott that resides in the Capitol Rotunda, painted by Melanie Humble
Additional milestones this week include birthdays for: Edda Collins Coleman, Oakland mayor Barbara Lee, Kelly Born, Ida B Wells, Jean Bordewich, Jessamyn West, and RW board member Dania Korkor.
Women Candidates Win in Arizona Congressional Race, but Lose Due to Plurality Voting in DC
Adelita Grijalva on the night of her primary win, hugging a supporter Source: CNN
Arizona’s 7th congressional district is one of three seats where a Democratic incumbent has died since the 2024 elections. On July 15th, Adelita Grijalva, a Pima County supervisor who previously served 20 years as a school board member, won a landslide victory in the Democratic primary and is heavily favored in the general election in September. The daughter of the late Congressman Raúl Grijalva defeated a field that included former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez and 25-year-old activist Deja Foxx.
In Washington, D.C., seven candidates ran to represent Ward 8. Sheila Bunn. who has worked for long-time congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and former mayor and Ward 7 council member Vincent C. Gray (D), finished a close second behind Trayon White Sr. In the fractured field still using a plurality voting system, White won with 29.7% of the vote despite being unanimously ousted from office by his former city council colleagues in February due to scandal and an upcoming corruption trial.
FairVote commented on the outcome:
Plurality wins are common in special elections, since these races often attract a wide set of candidates who split the vote. Ranked choice voting offers a solution to this problem, by letting voters rank candidates in order of preference and using voters’ rankings to identify a winner supported by a majority of voters. If a voter’s top choice can’t win, their vote counts for their next choice. No more worrying about “spoilers” or “wasting” your vote. While it’s impossible to say how RCV would have impacted the Ward 8 outcome, the winner of any RCV election must earn the support of a broader range of voters – not just a small plurality.
Fortunately, last year DC voters overwhelmingly approved Initiative 83 – which would bring ranked choice voting to the District’s elections and let independents vote in the primary of their choice. Just this week, the DC City Council approved funding to implement RCV in 2026. With RCV on track to take effect next year, this Ward 8 special election could be the last DC election held under a broken, single-choice system. More jurisdictions should follow DC’s lead and improve their elections with ranked choice voting. To learn more or get involved in election reform in Washington, DC, visit Make All Votes Count DC.
Women City Councilors Lead Effort to Fund Ranked Choice Voting in Washington, D.C.
Results like Ward 8 voters ending up with the return of a disgraced candidate like Trayon White despite more than 70% of voters opposing him are creating all the more energy to have lawmakers implement ranked choice voting, In the form of I83, ranked choice voting was approved by 73% to 27% in 2024, including by margins greater than two to one in every single council district.
Christina Henderson
Over the opposition of the long-time city council president who won his first primary with a very low share of the vote, two women councilors, Christina Henderson and Brianne Nadeau, led a successful effort to secure an 8-4 city council win to fund implementation of RCV in 2026. From Councilmember Christina Henderson:
“Today, with the Council’s approval of the funding for a portion of Initiative 83, the implementation of ranked choice voting will be able to move forward in the District of Columbia, affirming the will of the voters who overwhelmingly supported its implementation through Initiative 83. This has been a long and difficult road, but I was proud to introduce today’s amendment with my colleague, Councilmember Nadeau, and garner the support of 6 additional Councilmembers. As DC elections get more and more competitive, we need a new method that allows for voters' preferences for candidates to truly be realized.”
Brianne Nadeau
Councilmember Brianne Nadeau added:
“In 2024 voters went to the polls and did what this Council couldn’t – they passed a law to establish Ranked Choice Voting. Today I was pleased to work with my colleagues to put the funding in place for its implementation. I am committed to continuing to look for funding for the full implementation of I-83, to include open primaries. Today, we should be proud to move this piece forward.”
Thanks also to The Washington Post editorial team for its strong editorial that began:
Democrats talk a big game about making the U.S. electoral system fairer. But, so far, they are failing to live up to that commitment in D.C. Last November, D.C. voters overwhelmingly passed Initiative 83 to establish ranked-choice voting in the District and allow voters unregistered with a party to participate in partisan primaries. These reforms would dramatically improve democracy in the city.
Ranked-choice voting, also known as instant-runoff voting, would ensure that government officials could not be elected with just a sliver of a split vote. And semi-open primaries would give independent voters, who have long been shut out of the primary process, a voice in the city’s most important races. But many of D.C.’s elected officials — who might face some real competition under this new system — are stalling the reforms.
FairVote Lifts Up Introduction of Ranked Choice Voting Act and Fair Representation Act
RepresentWomen team members Alissa Bombardier Shaw, Cynthia Richie Terrell and Courtney Lamendola, and IREX fellow Vishmee Warnachapa in 2024.
Short of gender quotas, no single electoral reform at the a national level would have as much impact on electoral opportunities for women candidates as the adoption of ranked choice voting for all elections and the Fair Representation Act in Congress. I’m thrilled to share this message from FairVote’s chief program officer Ashley Houghton.
Next week, Representatives Jamie Raskin and Don Beyer will introduce two important pro-democracy bills: the Ranked Choice Voting Act and the Fair Representation Act. First, the Ranked Choice Voting Act would enact ranked choice voting (“RCV”) for all U.S. House and Senate elections. The bill would also authorize federal funding to help states implement RCV, including adapting equipment if necessary and conducting voter education.
RCV at the federal level would empower voters and ensure that Members of Congress have a majority mandate. The bill text will remain the same from last Congress.
Endorse the Ranked Choice Voting Act here!
Second, the Fair Representation Act is a bold, comprehensive solution that directly addresses partisan gerrymandering and uncompetitive elections. It encourages politicians to represent everyone, not just their base. And the Fair Representation Act would give communities of color more power in Congress. With the same text from last Congress, the Fair Representation Act would enact:
- Ranked choice voting for all U.S. House and Senate elections – this would allow voters to support their preferred candidates without feeling the need to choose the "lesser of two evils."
- Multi-winner congressional districts – this would allow more communities to elect members of their choice to Congress, even if those communities don't make up the majority of their district.
- Uniform rules for congressional redistricting – this would all but eliminate both partisan and racial gerrymandering.
Endorse the Fair Representation Act here!
New York City Charter Commission Backs Away from Weakening Ranked Choice Voting
RepresentWomen - Women poised to win NYC council elections in NYC.
I’ve reported on how women once again had remarkable success with ranked choice voting in New York City, likely sustaining their huge jump from 13 to 31 city council seats in primaries that soared in voter turnout in 2021 and 2025 with the arrival of RCV. I joined with the leaders of Vote Mama and Vote Run Lead to urge the City Charter Commission to back away from its tentative proposal to put on the ballot a Top Two primary system without RCV in the decisive election. We wrote:
In office, the new majority-women council has already achieved significant policy victories, including on women’s issues, such as maternal health, menstrual equity, childcare access, and reproductive rights, as well as gender-neutral issues, such as ensuring salary transparency, language access and cost-of-living adjustments for all New Yorkers.
Going to a “top two” voting system would put these gains at risk. The general election that decides winners will not be held with RCV. Instead, it would involve a long, punishing runoff election where candidates would be rewarded for negative ads that promote their differences, not their common ground. Men with greater access to big donors would gain an advantage, as Super PACs have their greatest power by pouring money into ads in highly negative, head-to-head runoff elections.
Fortunately, you have alternatives. If you seek to address the problem of unaffiliated voters not being able to vote in primaries, your most direct solution is the most proven: allow unaffiliated voters to participate in the party primary of their choice. If you seek to make more general elections matter, then extend RCV to all elections in the City - a change that makes more sense than ever in a year when we may have several prominent mayoral candidates on the general election ballot.
This week brings welcome news that the Commission indeed has relented and has set aside the Top Two proposal. New York City voters would benefit from further voting reform, but the City should build on what is working and extend RCV to the general election to eliminate split votes and plurality winners.
Lorissa Rinehart Podcast Features Emerge Candidates with Lessons about Running for Office
Source: The Female Body Politic
Lorissa Rinehart of The Female Body Politic is launching a new podcast series focused on running for office. Here is her description of the series:
Harnessing the unstoppable power of grassroots democracy, Emerge recruits, trains, and provides a dynamic network to women who want to run for office. From their entry-level free program, Step Forward, to their comprehensive Signature Program and candidate Boot Camps to specialty programs like Gavel In for women seeking a seat on the bench and Seated Together for Black elected officials ready to take the next step, Emerge’s programs address every level and branch of government.
With 1,200 elected alums and over 6,000 women ready to run, their work has been transformative. And, Emerge is just getting started. Under the leadership of my guest today, Emerge President and CEO A’shanti Gholar, Emerge has grown its affiliate network to half the country. It has significantly expanded its program offerings to meet the needs of more women seeking office. And now, along with PERSIST. and FEMINIST, Emerge recently launched Opposition Playbook, a historic campaign to increase the number of women running for office….
Here on The Female Body Politic, we wanted to document this sea-change in the making and give our listeners a behind-the-scenes look at how Emerge is poised to help bring gender parity and good governance to every legislative body, criminal justice office, and right on into the Oval Office. In the coming weeks, I’ll be speaking with current Emerge program members and alums running for office. Together, these episodes are building a guide for anyone curious about what it takes to run for office, especially for the first time. If it inspires you to run for office, with Emerge, you’ll have the tools, knowledge, and network you need to win.
In this first episode of the series, I talk with Emerge President and CEO A’shanti Gholar, about her incredible clarity of vision and capacity to map out the long game that has helped guide the organization since she co-founded Emerge Nevada in 2006. Now, she’s looking well past the current moment to Emerge 2035, which aims to lift the New American Majority of Black, Brown, and Indigenous women, women of color, LGBTQ+, young, and unmarried women to become the leaders of our country and in so doing, create a truly representational democracy.
The Global Gender Equality Snapshot in 2025
Source: Freepik
Focus 2030’s aim is to help keep international development on the agenda – for decision-makers, media and citizens. It recently published a comprehensive Overview of Data Resources on Gender Equality Across the World that takes stock of global gender inequality across every major domain, from access to contraception to political representation, workplace discrimination, unpaid care work, and adolescent birthrates. The report draws on dozens of trusted international datasets to provide a comprehensive overview of where women and girls stand, economically, socially, and civically, in 2025.
One of the starkest takeaways: Not a single country in the world has yet achieved full gender equality, while more than 2.4 billion women and girls live in nations with “poor” or “very poor” scores on gender parity. According to current trends, the world will fall short of reaching the Sustainable Development Goals for gender equality by 2030. Even in areas where progress has been made, like increasing literacy and reducing teen birthrates, women remain vastly underrepresented in leadership and overburdened by care work. Nearly 9 in 10 people globally still hold at least one sexist belief, and 16% of women live in countries where domestic violence is not criminalized. In politics, women make up only 27% of parliamentarians worldwide.
This is important for the health of democracy because power involves more than voting; it includes who drafts laws, controls resources, and whose needs are prioritized. Without full and fair representation of women and girls, democratic governance remains incomplete. Focus 2030’s data-rich portal provides activists, researchers, and policymakers with tools to assess key issues and the evidence needed to advocate for urgent and structural reforms.
Underrepresented at the Top: Learning from Gender Inequity in Leadership Role
In 2024, women were 10% of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies, including SAIC’s Toni Townes Whitley, Expedia’s Ariane Gorin, and JetBlue’s Joanna Geraghty
Women’s lag in equitable leadership is widespread in American society. The Conference Board in May published CEO Succession and Representation of Women: Progress, Barriers, Opportunities. From the summary:
“Despite ongoing progress, women remain significantly underrepresented in CEO roles at US public companies. While the share of women CEOs has reached record highs, growth has been uneven across industries, company sizes, and leadership pipelines and still lags far behind gains in the boardroom. This article explores the current state of women’s representation among CEOs, examines the factors driving or constraining progress, and outlines implications for boards, investors, and corporate leadership amid heightened political and legal scrutiny of corporate diversity efforts.”
McKinsey & Company in May released A five-year review of women’s representation in healthcare. It provides a sobering five-year overview of women’s representation in healthcare that helps inform women’s lagging representation in government. The data clearly shows that although women comprise nearly two-thirds of the entry-level healthcare workforce, they occupy only one-third of C-suite positions. Additionally, women of color represent just 5% of executive leadership. The authors report that “our most recent survey shows that progress might be slowing; barriers remain that require focused investment from healthcare organizations. Women’s representation hasn’t seen much change between 2020 and 2024, and in fact, attrition rates have gotten worse:”
While healthcare is frequently viewed as a “female-dominated” industry, the data reveals a different truth: progress has stalled, glass ceilings persist, and systemic barriers hinder advancement. Women are overrepresented in caregiving roles but underrepresented in leadership positions, with significant drops starting at the managerial level. The report highlights lack of sponsorship, burnout, and bias in promotion as key factors.
Why 'More Women in Office' Alone Isn’t Enough: Rethinking Critical Mass Theory
For decades, the idea of “critical mass” has shaped how we talk about women in politics: once women make up roughly 30 percent of a legislature, the theory goes, real change begins. But a landmark academic article by political scientists Sarah Childs and Mona Lena Krook says that framing may be misleading.
In their 2008 paper, Critical Mass Theory and Women’s Political Representation, Childs and Krook argue that this widely cited idea is based on a misreading of earlier feminist research. Rather than a magic number that guarantees progress, they find that political representation is much more complicated and must be understood through power, institutions, and strategy, not just counts.
The authors revisit foundational theories by Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1977) and Drude Dahlerup (1988), who introduced critical mass- the idea that once women in legislatures reach a threshold (e.g., 10–40%), they can form coalitions that foster women-friendly policies. But Childs and Krook caution that these ideas were never meant to be taken as universal or automatic. Instead, they were grounded in context and often focused on descriptive representation (who is in office), not substantive representation (what they actually do).
Childs and Krook argue the theoretical link between presence and policy impact is weak and often misunderstood. The authors advocate for a stronger, more cumulative research approach by re-centering analysis on coalition formation, institutional dynamics, and political context and ensuring that quantitative work on women’s numbers is paired with qualitative insights into legislative behavior and cultural norms.
As more women seek office in 2025 and beyond, especially women of color and LGBTQ+ candidates, Childs and Krook’s work offers an essential reminder: while celebrating gains in representation is important, lasting impact requires a deeper look at the systems in place. The presence of women alone is not enough; it must be paired with the power and opportunity to lead and legislate effectively.
Packaging Summer Flavors for the Winter Gift Giving 🫐
I made five batches of jam this last weekend including 3 batches of red raspberry, 1 batch of apricot, and 1 batch of blackberry/ black raspberry, while I had to buy most of the fruit from a local farm (thanks Heyser Farm) I was able to add some berries from my own garden!
That’s all for this week my friends,
Cynthia
P.S. I enjoyed listening to The Book Club for Troublesome Women and I would recommend it for anyone wanting a light summer read filled with strong & feisty women characters!
