12 September 2025

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation Week of September 12, 2025

Remembering the women who served on 9/11, confronting rising political violence, and preparing for Voter Registration Day.

Yesterday, our nation paused to remember the anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City. Twenty-three years later, the grief of that day is still sharp for many, but so too is the memory of resilience and service. In the days that followed, women stood alongside the men at Ground Zero — firefighters, EMTs, police officers, crane operators, and Red Cross volunteers. They were there, bound by a shared duty to help and heal, and yet too often, their presence and sacrifice were erased.

Brenda Berkman, a pioneering female New York City firefighter who sued the FDNY in the late 1970s to open its ranks to women, recalled how jarring it was to hear her colleagues across the country asking: “What is going on in New York?” Media coverage showed no women first responders, even though dozens, including herself, had rushed to the scene.

Berkman, bottom left, poses with the first class of women firefighters to graduate from the New York City Fire Department Academy in 1982. These 11 women graduated with 103 men. Source: AP Photo/David Bookstaver

As Berkman put it in an interview with The 19th:

“They were saying, ‘Well, there were no women firefighters killed there, and so, therefore, there weren’t any women there, or the women there were useless because they weren’t killed. [...] It was like we had to be killed doing our job.”

Yet, women were there at every step. Three women — Port Authority Police Captain Kathy Mazza, EMT Yamel Josefina Merino, and NYPD Officer Moira Ann Smith — lost their lives that day. Dozens more women responded, including the 25 women firefighters in the department at the time. However, in the narrative that emerged, women were only visible on the periphery of events — present but not central — while their leadership and heroism were nearly erased.

Thankfully, in recent years, more women-centered stories have come to light, reminding us how deeply women contributed to the rescue and recovery. Sonia Agron worked overnight shifts with the Red Cross after nearly losing her husband in the towers; Pia Hofmann climbed into the cab of a 100-ton crane to move steel and debris for months on end. And Carol Orazem, one of the first women to join the NYPD in the 1980s when it was still a predominantly male department, spent September 11th and the days that followed at Ground Zero. She had built her career breaking barriers in law enforcement, working her way from Manhattan’s First Precinct into the intelligence division. On 9/11, she was dispatched straight into the chaos, and the boots she wore that day — their soles still bearing the scars of melted steel — are now preserved in the 9/11 Memorial Museum, helping to ensure the memory of the women who put their lives on the line that day is not forgotten.

A photo provided by Carol Orazem shows a pair of boots with melted soles that Orazem wore while working at the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks of 2001. Source: AP Photo/Carol Orazem, The Associated Press

The preservation of Orazem’s boots reminds us that memory is not about what is saved, but what is told. As part of the 20th anniversary coverage of 9/11, more of these woman-centered stories were finally lifted up. ABC’s Women of 9/11 special captured some of these legacies — women who were first on the scene, who turned trauma into purpose, and found ways to lead in the face of unimaginable loss.

Four inspiring women who survived trauma and loss on 9/11 share their stories of finding purpose and peace after two decades. Source: ABC’s Women of 9/11

Although more than two decades have passed since that tragic day in American history, there is much we are still called to remember — including a profound reflection from Berkman herself on what patriotism truly means:

“What’s more patriotic than to point out that everyone in the United States, including the women and people of color and LGBT community, that they’re doing the right thing — everyone is pulling together, everyone is making sacrifices.”

Her words ring true today: the health of our democracy depends on ensuring that women’s leadership and voices are not erased, but honored and empowered.

As we reflect on the women of 9/11 and the ongoing lessons of that day, we are reminded that women’s leadership is not a side note to history — it is the heartbeat of a resilient democracy. They stood in the fire — literally and figuratively — and showed us what courage and leadership look like, even in the hardest of moments. Their actions light the path ahead: when women lead, communities heal and democracies grow stronger. Their courage calls us forward.

Today, let us honor their legacy by ensuring that every woman has the power to shape our democracy — and that begins with access to the ballot. With National Voter Registration Day upon us next Tuesday, let us recommit to doing the simple but profound act of participation: checking our registration, helping other women do the same, and standing up for a democracy that reflects us all. In doing so, we keep the memory of the women of 9/11 alive and help build a democracy worthy of their sacrifice.

Annalena Baerbock Becomes Fifth Woman to Preside Over UN General Assembly

Assembly President Baerbock speaks to reporters outside the General Assembly Hall. Source: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

This week marked a historic moment at the United Nations as Annalena Baerbock, former foreign minister of Germany, was sworn in as the new President of the UN General Assembly — only the fifth woman in history to hold the role.

Calling the opening of the UN’s 80th session “no ordinary session,” Baerbock urged Member States to unite in addressing overlapping crises of war, poverty, climate change, and democratic backsliding. In a symbolic gesture linking past to present, she took her oath on the UN’s original 1945 Charter and accepted the Assembly’s gavel, pledging to lead with courage, inclusiveness, and transparency.

Baerbock laid out priorities for the year ahead, including advancing the UN80 reform agenda, guiding the process of selecting the next Secretary-General, and delivering on commitments around peace, sustainable development, and human rights. In her address to delegates, Baerbock championed unity and courage, stating:

“If girls in Afghanistan or parents in Gaza can wake up — in the darkest hours of life — and push forward, then so can we. We owe it to them. But we owe it also to ourselves, because there is simply no alternative.”

At RepresentWomen, we know moments like this are rare — only a handful of women have presided over the “parliament of the world” in its 80-year history. Baerbock’s leadership is a reminder of why representation matters at the highest levels of multilateral institutions. For a stronger, more inclusive global order, systems must be reformed to ensure women’s voices are not the exception but the norm.

No Place for Political Violence

Photo source: World Economic Forum.

This week, our nation experienced another tragic act of political violence, a grim reminder of the rising threats facing our democracy. As we all take a moment to reflect, we at RepresentWomen turn to the legacy of women leaders who have modeled courage and nonviolence in the face of division and oppression.

From my fellow Quaker Alice Paul, who endured arrest while peacefully demanding women’s suffrage, to Coretta Scott King, who carried forward the mantle of civil rights through the King Center’s work on nonviolent social change; from Dolores Huerta, whose boycotts and organizing reshaped labor rights for farmworkers, to Leymah Gbowee and Wangari Maathai, whose movements for peace and environmental justice helped heal nations — women have long led by showing that change can be won without violence.

Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, showed the world that planting trees could also plant peace, justice, and hope — image painted by Melanie Humble.

Their legacy calls us to remember: throughout history, brave women have pushed us forward through the most challenging moments by practicing nonviolence and modeling courage, restraint, and civic love. Let us learn from them — and carry that legacy into today, at a time when our democracy urgently needs it.

Because the truth is clear: political violence is not new, but it is rising — and it threatens to undo the very progress these women fought to achieve. In just the past few months, state leaders have been killed or targeted in their homes; a political commentator was assassinated while speaking at a university; and other public officials and institutions have been attacked. Researchers describe the moment as a historically significant surge in “violent populism,” with incidents and attempts occurring on all sides of the political spectrum — a pattern political leaders and scholars warn could escalate if we do not act.

Minnesota’s state legislative leaders, Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, left, and House Speaker Lisa Demuth, spoke at a Legislative Summit tribute to Speaker Emerita Lisa Hortman, who was killed in a politically motivated shooting on June 14. (Kevin Newsome/NCSL)

Minnesota’s tragedy crystallized the stakes — especially for women political leaders who often feel particularly vulnerable to politically motivated violence. In June, a former state House speaker and her husband were assassinated, and a state senator and his wife were shot and wounded — attacks that state and federal officials condemned as targeted political violence. Lawmakers across parties used the 2025 NCSL Legislative Summit to call for dialing down dehumanizing rhetoric and rebuilding norms of respect across deep differences.

Yet, this week’s events show that the message of nonviolence must be championed further — and that the ecosystem fueling violence requires urgent attention. Eveline Dowling at Expand Democracy writes about the problem and systemic solutions in the latest edition of Expand Democracy Three:

“Understanding the psychology of political violence is only the first step. As the July Democracy Exchange Network meeting highlighted, combating this threat requires practical reforms to protect those who step forward to serve. At that meeting, Sarah Hague of Vote Mama introduced the organization’s Campaign Funds for Security (CFS) initiative, which builds on their earlier success in securing approval for campaign funds to be used for childcare. CFS would extend that principle to candidate safety, allowing campaign dollars to pay for security measures, legal protections, and cyber defense.

Representative Liz Berry of Washington State powerfully illustrated why such measures are essential. After receiving violent threats tied to her work on gun safety, she described the inadequacy of current protections and emphasized the need for clear rules, training, and resources to safeguard candidates and their families. Her testimony makes clear that political violence is a lived reality for many who seek to serve, and an especially high barrier for women and mothers considering public office. She and her legislative colleagues aim to introduce legislation that reflects her experience and learning later this year.”

At RepresentWomen — and with partners like Expand Democracy — our position is united and simple: American democracy cannot thrive if political participation carries the constant risk of violence.

Best-selling author and journalist Michael Smerconish echoed this urgency while pointing toward hope, noting that despite what we see online, the extremes do not represent the majority of Americans:

“The majority of Americans are somewhere between left of center and right of center, but you’d never know that if you landed here from a different planet and turned on a television outlet or a radio outlet or, for goodness’ sake, looked at the internet,” Smerconish says. “So, I think what’s most important is an awareness campaign of people who are disgusted by all this to let them know that they’re not alone and to figure out how they can be more engaged in the process.”

It is on all of us to heed those words — and to decide to be part of the change. We can reject dehumanizing narratives, invest in prevention and candidate safety, and recommit to nonviolence in word and deed, all while advancing systems reforms that make our democracy more representative.

As John Lennon reminds us in his song Imagine:

“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

[Chorus]
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one.”

New Mexico with Women’s Leadership Becomes First State to Guarantee Free Child Care

Beginning in November, it will be the first state in the nation to provide child care to all residents regardless of income. Source: Melina Mara/The Washington Post/Getty Images

In an unprecedented move, New Mexico will become the first state in the nation to provide free child care for all residents regardless of income, starting this November. Notably, New Mexico also has had women governors since 2011, and its legislature is 54.5% female - the second highest in the nation.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the initiative this week, calling child care “essential to family stability, workforce participation, and New Mexico’s future prosperity.” By eliminating income eligibility requirements and waiving family copayments, the new system is expected to save families $12,000 per child annually.

This bold reform is years in the making. Since establishing the Early Childhood Education and Care Department in 2019, New Mexico has steadily expanded eligibility and funding for universal childcare. In 2022, Latinas in the state led the charge for a constitutional amendment that would ensure a portion of the state’s $10 billion early childhood trust fund is directed toward universal access.

The investment is more than financial relief for families — it’s a systems change that could transform the state’s economy and workforce. Half of the department’s nearly $1 billion budget now goes toward child care payment support. The rollout also includes a $13 million loan fund to expand facilities, recruitment efforts for home-based providers, and incentives to ensure staff are paid at least $18 an hour. Altogether, the initiative could create 55 new centers and 1,120 home-based options across the state. As covered by The 19th:

“Child care is essential to family stability, workforce participation and New Mexico’s future prosperity,” Lujan Grisham said in her announcement. “By investing in universal child care, we are giving families financial relief, supporting our economy, and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow and thrive.”

At RepresentWomen, we recognize that policies like universal childcare are foundational to women’s leadership. Caregiving remains one of the most significant barriers for women who run for office or serve once elected. By treating child care as a public good rather than a private burden, New Mexico is not only investing in children — it is investing in women’s participation in democracy itself.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu Has Landslide Edge after Nonpartisan Primary

Source: From Mass Live

Boston mayor Michelle Wu easily surpassed her rivals in a nonpartisan primary on September 9th, winning 72% of the vote. In November, she will have a token runoff after her leading rival, Josh Kraft, dropped out , having earned only 23% despite spending more than $5 million. Here is an excerpt from Mass Live’s coverage of her primary win:

“Wu is wrapping up her first four-year term as mayor, but has been in city politics far longer than that.

She began working in city government in 2010 as an intern under then-Mayor Tom Menino and was first elected to the Boston City Council in 2013. From 2016 to 2018, Wu served as council president, becoming the first woman of color and Asian American to do so.

Wu has campaigned on her administration’s wins, such as investments in affordable housing and other programs to increase the city’s housing supply. The city registered its lowest homicide rate in decades last year, and while homicides have ticked back up this year, she has often referred to Boston as the “safest major city” in the United States.”

American Bar Association Releases Comprehensive Report Recommending Structural Electoral Reforms

The American Bar Association this week released an impressive and detailed report from the ABA Task Force for American Democracy, which was the culmination of “a two-year, bipartisan effort to address the most pressing threats to the rule of law and democratic institutions in the United States.” The report lifts up reform in 12 core areas of democracy. Of special interest to RepresentWomen is its section elevating structural electoral reforms designed to provide voters with greater choice - a goal that our research suggests will often increase women’s chances of electoral success.

Here’s an excerpt on its recommendation of ranked choice voting that accompanied support for nonpartisan primaries and fusion voting:

"The Task Force also encourages states to consider whether their unique circumstances would benefit from employing some form of ranked choice voting in the general election to guarantee that those who are chosen to lead are backed by majority support and hold true democratic mandates to carry out the policies on which they were elected.

In ranked-choice voting, voters rank all the candidates on the general election ballot in the voters’ preferred order, and the ballots are then tabulated in a way that majority support is eventually awarded to a candidate. Ranked choice voting thus ensures that the candidate elected enjoys majority support while avoiding the cost, effort, and lower turnout associated with holding runoff elections.

Moreover, by incentivizing candidates to appeal to voters beyond their party’s base to win second-choice or even third-choice votes, ranked-choice voting encourages civil discourse and increases campaign civility."

Leading Women Mathematician Explains Her New Views on DEI

Source: New York Times

Dr. Eugenia Cheng, scientist in residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has a thoughtful guest essay in the New York Times on “What I Got Wrong about DEI” that underscores how we can - and I would argue must - bring ongoing intentionality to help women overcome millennia of second-class status. Here’s an excerpt:

"Metrics can be measured only by taking into account the starting point and ending point, as well as relevant features of the journey — the whole story. When we evaluate people, we could do the same. Instead of just looking at what they have achieved, we could also look at where they started and be clearer about how we are measuring the metaphorical distance they have come and whether we are taking into account the support they had or the obstructions they faced.

If we are selecting sprinters for a track team, we might look at their best times for the 100-meter dash. But if someone had, for some reason, only ever run races uphill or against the wind, it would make sense to take that into account and not compare that runner’s times to others’ directly. We would be treating those people differently but only because their paths were different; really we’d be evaluating their paths fairly relative to their contexts….

It took me a long time to realize that when I began my career, I had probably worked much harder than I might have if I had had a different identity. I had to work against people telling me I would never be able to succeed. When I attended conferences, I dealt with inappropriate behavior from men senior to me. I had to find my way in my career having no mentors who looked at all like me. I am grateful for the support of some senior mathematicians, and I now realize that it wasn’t extra help because I was a woman; it was help in overcoming the extra obstructions I faced as a woman.

It shouldn’t be called sexist to help people overcome sexism, and it shouldn’t be called racist to help people overcome racism, but if we give this help too crudely, then we leave ourselves open to these criticisms. Math teaches us that D.E.I. initiatives should be about carefully defining the metrics we use to measure how far people have come and thus how far they have the potential to go. They should be about uncovering when some people are constantly running uphill or against the wind, which can inform us how to give everyone an equal tailwind and an equal opportunity to succeed."

Norway Holds Elections where Women are Near Parity in the Parliament

Progress Party leader Sylvi Listhaug votes in Oslo, Norway, Sept. 8, 2025. Source: EUNews

On September 8th, Norway held national elections to its parliament. Center-left parties won a majority of seats, and their prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, will likely be able to form a governing coalition. The Progress Party, which takes a hard line on immigration, doubled its number of seats, and its leader, Sylvi Listhaug, would likely have been prime minister in the event of a rightwing victory.

The Norwegian parliamentary website has a rundown of progress for women in Norway. It introduces profiles of trailblazing women political leaders with this text:

"The story of female representation in the Storting is about small steps on the road to major change. At the 2021 parliamentary election, 76 women were elected to the Storting. This equates to almost 45% of the total, a historic high in this country.

The first woman to serve as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the Storting was Anna Rogstad. She took her seat as a Substitute MP for the Liberal Left Party in 1911. This was a mere four years after a limited number of women, those of a certain means or income, had been given the vote at parliamentary elections. One consequence of the change was that women were now also eligible to stand for election to the Storting. This enabled Anna Rogstad to take her seat as an MP two years before universal female suffrage was adopted in 1913. It took a further 11 years until the architect Karen Platou from the Conservative Party was to become the first regular female MP.

After peace returned to Europe in 1945, the proportion of women in the Storting slowly rose. However, it was during the 1970s that this trend gathered pace. Women gradually took on important parliamentary offices in the post-war years. From the mid-1970s, women also rose to key leadership positions in the political parties."

Will Sanae Takaichi Become Japan’s First Woman Prime Minister?

Source: From CNBC

Women do far less well in Japan than in any other major democracy, ranking 139th in the world with women holding only 15.7% of seats in its lower house of parliament. Like the United States, women have also never risen to the top executive office. CNBC reports on how, with the resignation of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Sanae Takaichi leads public opinion polls as his replacement. From its coverage:

“Various names have been bandied around to see who would succeed Ishiba, but two prominent names have emerged: former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi and current agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi.

Neither has formally announced a run, but political risk consultancy Eurasia Group said both are expected to enter the contest to replace Ishiba. A Nikkei opinion poll last month showed Takaichi leading with 23% support, while Koizumi had 22%. If elected, Takaichi would be the first woman to helm the world's fourth-largest economy.

When asked if Japan was ready for a female prime minister, Tomohiko Taniguchi, former special adviser to the cabinet under the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" that voters are more ready for a female leader than many assume.

"It's just about time for Japan to have the first female prime minister, and I think it's in line with the changes that have happened over the last 10, 15 years," he noted, adding that "female labor participation in Japan is bigger in number than it is in the United States."

About 85% of Japanese women aged between 25 and 54 years were working, compared with 78% in the U.S, according to the latest data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.”

Iraq’s First ‘Feminist’ Political Party Jumped High Hurdles to Exist

Iraqi feminist leader Jihan al-Tae. Source: PassBlue

Iraq will hold its next parliamentary elections in November, once again using a party list form of proportional representation with gender quotas - a combination of rules established in Iraq’s 2004 constitution under United States military control. Women hold 28.9% of seats in its parliament, just about the same as the 28.7% held by women in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The London School of Economics last year published an analysis of the value of building on this progress to enable women to have more substantive representation. But a new feminist party with that mission has fallen short of running candidates this year. PassBlue has a fascinating interview with the party’s founder and secretary-general, Jihan al-Taei. Excerpts:

“Jihan al-Taei, calls al-Mawadda a historic development in Iraqi politics. It is a party born out of the marginalization of Iraqi women, who make up more than half the population but remain systematically excluded from decision-making spaces.

“When we entered the world of candidacy and politics, I felt let down by the ruling parties’ treatment of independent female candidates,” al-Taei said in an interview with PassBlue. “I saw how women working within party organizations were favored over those from outside, and how males controlled everything and were favored over women.”...

According to Mariana Duarte Mutzenberg, a gender expert at the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which tracks women’s political representation globally, “Sexism, harassment and violence remain key obstacles to women parliamentarians’ full participation.” Despite the quota in Iraq, no woman has ever held the position of Speaker, and of Iraq’s five parliamentary committees monitored by the IPU, only the gender one is chaired by a woman.

Yet, compared with its regional neighbors, Iraq’s gains are significant: the country now has the second-highest proportion of women MPs in the Mideast and North Africa (MENA) region, behind the United Arab Emirates, which has achieved gender parity through quotas.

Nevertheless, women candidates in Iraq continue to face intimidation, smear campaigns and logistical barriers, as detailed in media reporting from the 2018 and 2021 elections, where some candidates experienced harassment and damage to campaign materials. Additionally, legal interventions have often favored male candidates. Human rights activists have documented persistent resistance from religious and ruling parties to women’s participation.

Al-Taei’s party seeks to move beyond symbolic representation. Its platform emphasizes women’s political, economic and social empowerment, protection of children, reform of state institutions and stronger enforcement of the law against gender-based violence. The party already counts more than 7,000 members across Iraq and the autonomous Kurdistan region, al-Taei said.”