Don’t ovary-act, but we need better women’s representation
Posted on Blog on November 30, 2020
Check out RepresentWomen Intern Bobbie Bell's blog on the Gender Parity Index: "Don’t Ovary-Act, But We Need Better Women’s Representation." A timely reminder that #RepresentationMatters
Press Releases
Posted on Media on November 03, 2020
September 15 - RepresentWomen Releases Research on First-Gen Women’s Political Representation
Posted by Kaycie Goral · September 15, 2021 12:00 AM
August 23- 2021 GENDER PARITY INDEX UPDATE
Posted by Kaycie Goral · August 23, 2021 1:47 PM
· 1 reaction
RepresentWomen Releases Research on Disabled Women’s Political Representation
Posted by Kaycie Goral · August 11, 2021 12:00 AM
Even after the "Year of the Woman," Republican women remain underrepresented
Posted on Blog by on October 17, 2019
"It’s hard to not get excited about all of the young, diverse Republican women running in 2020. If the United States is ever going to achieve gender parity, it is necessary for more Republican women to get elected. However, there are obstacles standing in the way of those women becoming leaders in this country. Embracing recruitment targets and challenging PACs to set goals for the totals that they give to female candidates would alleviate the hurdles that these women face while running for office. Advancing these reforms is a key step in advancing women’s representation in government."
Gender Parity Index
Posted on Our Research on September 05, 2017
To quantify progress towards gender parity in elected and appointed office, RepresentWomen developed the Gender Parity Index (GPI). Each year, a Gender Parity Score and grade is calculated for each of the 50 states and for the United States as a whole. The Gender Parity Score reflects women's recent electoral successes at the local, state, and national levels on a scale of 0 (if no women were elected to any offices) to 100 (if women held all elected offices). The key advantage of the GPI is that it enables comparisons to be made over time and among states.
2021 Data Methodology Score Chart State-by-State Graphics GPI History
Gender Parity Index 2014-2020 Report Library:
- 2020 Gender Parity Index report
- 2019 Gender Parity Index report
- 2018 Gender Parity Index report
- 2017 Gender Parity Index report
- 2016 Gender Parity Index report
- 2015 Gender Parity Index report
- 2014 Gender Parity Index report
- 2013 Gender Parity Index launch
Breaking Down the History of the Gender Parity Index
In January 2021, Kamala Harris was sworn in as Vice President of the United States. Twelve women have since advanced into top leadership roles in President Biden's Cabinet. A record number of women were sworn in to serve the 117th Congress. More women are being appointed and elected to state executive offices. Women hold almost a third of all seats in state legislatures. And the number of Black women leading major US cities has reached an all-time high.
And yet, overall progress towards parity in the US remains frustratingly incremental. In 2021, the average Gender Parity Score is 24.63. If we round up, this brings us to an average score of 25 out of 100, which means we are halfway to parity. In 2020, the average score was 23.85 (24 out of 100); in 2019, the average score was 23.23 (23 out of 100). Progress towards parity remains uneven across geography, race, party, and age. Today, women hold just over a quarter of all available seats in government, from national and state-level offices to major local-level offices.
infogram_0_fad77bb9-af8c-4e91-b796-945617266905GPI History 2014 - 2020https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed.js?Ua8text/javascript
Existing strategies to increase the number of women in government have only gotten us halfway to parity - equality can't wait another 100+ years.
Over the last several decades, advocates in the United States have focused on building a pipeline of women in elected office by preparing individual women to run. As important as this work is, it won't work on its own. The fact that we are still celebrating candidate firsts for women serves as a reminder of how incremental progress has been over the past century.
To change this, we need to invest in systems strategies that will help women to Run, Win, Serve, and Lead.
