Gender parity in the new European Commission is a huge success, as is the number of countries reaching parity for their MEPs; but, for true gender equality to exist, women must have equal access and roles in all levels of government including municipal, national and supranational.

Brexit Flags (CreativeCommons) “Flags outside Parliament” by ChiralJon is licensed under CC BY 2.0

As the UK continues to Brexit, we’ll continue to look for the women missing from the national conversation.

New Zealand’s actions for gender and Indigenous inclusion are working, it is now just a matter of ensuring Indigenous women have the same voice as their male and non-Indigenous counterparts. 

To achieve progress in women’s representation in many countries, including Brazil, a change in systems which enable and support the disenfranchisement of women and minorities is needed.

“My young men are to lay aside their weapons; they are to take up the work of women; they will plow the field and raise the crops; for them I see a future, but my women, they to whom we owe everything, what is there for them to do? I see nothing! You are a woman; have pity on my women when everything is taken from them.”

Melinda Gates is right on the money, as the saying goes, to reach gender equality and parity in the U.S. is going to take more than what we are currently doing. This lofty goal requires lofty and systemic changes.

Add your name to the growing list of people who support Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) because it's a powerful tool to ensure that elected bodies reflect the constituents they serve!

Higher numbers of women are getting elected in jurisdictions with Ranked Choice Voting because:

• RCV elections are more civil & issue-focused so more women run
• RCV elections reward strong grassroots campaigns that cost less so more women can run viable campaigns
• RCV elections allow multiple women to run in the same race without splitting the vote
• RCV elections maximizes voters' power to elect their preferred candidates

How it works: Ranked choice voting allows voters to rank as many candidates as they want in order of choice--first, second, third, and so on. All first choices are counted, and if a candidate has a majority, they win, just like any other election. However if nobody has a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and those voters have their ballot instantly count for their next choice. This process continues until a candidate receives a majority of votes, and is declared the winner.

Onida Coward Mayers is Vice President of the MiRam group, former Director for New York City’s Voter Assistance at the Campaign Finance Board, and an award-winning communications executive. For the past 10 years, Ms. Coward Mayers directed strategic voter outreach, policy, and vision planning for one of the largest voting populations in the United States. In her capacity at the CFB, Ms. Coward Mayers led the launch of the nonpartisan NYC Votes Program aimed at increasing voter awareness, education, and participation. In 2013, she led New York City to place second in the United States for highest number of people registered in a single day. Ms. Coward Mayers is also an Adjunct Professor of Public Speaking for the City University of New York.

Cynthia Richie Terrell is the founder and executive director of RepresentWomen, a founding member of the ReflectUS coalition, and an outspoken advocate for institutional reforms to advance women’s representation and leadership in the United States. Terrell and her husband Rob Richie helped to found FairVote - a nonpartisan champion of electoral reforms that give voters greater choice, a stronger voice, and more representative democracy. Terrell has worked on projects related to women's representation, democracy, and voting system reform in the United States and has worked extensively to help parliamentarians around the globe meet UN goals for women’s representation and leadership.

During college and at the beginning of her career Terrell worked on political campaigns, as campaign manager and field director for campaigns for the U.S. President, U.S. House and U.S. Senate, for governor, and for state and city-wide initiative efforts, including a state equal rights amendment in Iowa and a city campaign for fair representation voting.

In 2020 Terrell was named a Brewer Fellow along with a cohort of leaders in the democracy reform movement. Terrell has a chapter on women and the presidency in the 2020 volume The Best Candidate: Presidential Nomination in Polarized Times. Terrell writes a weekly column on women’s representation for Ms. and has been published in numerous print journals including the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Hill, Refinery29, The Nation, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The American Prospect, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun, and The Christian Science Monitor. She has appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal; and has participated in numerous radio shows, podcasts & panel discussions on the topics of electoral reform and systems strategies to advance women’s representation and leadership.

Terrell is an avid knitter & gardener, has three children, and is active in local politics and in the Quaker community. She graduated with a B.A. in political science from Swarthmore College in 1986.

Contact: [email protected]

Twitter: @CynthiaRTerrell