Sojourner Truth didn’t deliver her iconic “Ain’t I a Woman?” address for the sake of an inspirational Instagram post. Susan B. Anthony didn’t champion women’s voting rights for a special museum exhibit. A women-themed happy hour was hardly the motivation for Sacagawea’s dangerous trek across the country with Lewis and Clark.

The developments are to be welcomed, but with the right amount of scrutiny, according to Cynthia Richie Terrell, the founder and director of RepresentWomen, a nonpartisan organisation that works to advance female representation in appointed and elected office. “I would say this year definitely feels different,” she says. “But there’s a caveat.” Terrell used as an explanatory crutch the ‘excalibur’ scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!”). “Like the handing out of swords, resignation by men due to predatory sexual behaviour and other scandals, leaving openings for women, cannot be the basis of our revolution,” she says with a small laugh.

The United States has fallen behind most established democracies in women’s representation in politics. Women remain underrepresented at the federal, state, and local levels, and the current uptick in women running for office is unlikely to close this gender gap. Saskia Brechenmacher will discuss key findings from her new paper, “Tackling Women’s Underpresentation in U.S. Politics: Comparative Perspectives from Europe,” with Cynthia Terrell and Michelle Whittaker, experienced political organizers and gender equality advocates.

Frances McDormand ended her Best Actress acceptance speech on Sunday night with a phrase so new to people that it immediately spiked on Google, trended on Twitter and became the top search of the night on Merriam-Webster.com. "I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider,” she said. What is an inclusion rider? Essentially, it’s a clause that actors and actresses could include into movie contracts that insisted on fair representation of women and people of color, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

Happy International Women’s Day! It’s a day that happens once a year to celebrate the achievements of womankind. Personally, we think we should be celebrating women all day, every day — and Lush Cosmetics agrees.

Every two years, we get the same irritating question: Will this year be the next “Year of the Woman?” With a record number of women stepping forward this year to run for office, the phone calls from reporters are already starting to come in. While both of us have spent decades working to elect women, we want to say unequivocally that it’s time to retire the term “Year of the Woman” once and for all.

South Carolina ranks 46th out of 50 states in terms of women’s representation in the legislature over time, according to Representation 2020, an advocacy group for women running for public office. The legislature has seen just a one percent increase of women since 1993. The state fares better on Representation 2020’s Gender Parity Index, ranking 24th and scoring 5 times higher than it did in 1993.

As co-founder of Higher Heights for America, Kimberly Peeler-Allen has spent the better part of a decade trying to boost black women in politics. Despite her efforts, Peeler-Allen found herself feeling frustrated by the sluggish pace of change. When she turned to fellow advocates working to elect women to office, she heard a similar concerns. “Even with all the resources that have been put into electing women, we haven’t seen the gains that we have all hoped to have seen,” Peeler-Allen recalled. “So we said it’s time to try to do something different.”

There’s a surge of Democratic women running for office in Maryland this year — and party officials say they want to make sure it stays that way. New rules in place for the June 26 primary mean Democratic voters in 17 counties, some for the first time, will vote separately for men and women who are seeking central party positions.

I wanted to respond thoughtfully to Ed Kimmel’s Seventh State blog about the Maryland State Democratic Central Committee’s recent decision to adopt new rules to achieve gender balance by popular election on our county and state central committees.