Executive Summary

In August 2013, RepresentWomen launched the Gender Parity Index (GPI) to help researchers and advocates track progress toward gender-balanced governance and identify opportunities for increasing women’s political representation in the U.S. Each year, we assign all 50 states a Gender Parity Score, letter grade, and ranking according to their proximity to parity. One of the key takeaways from this exercise is that progress toward gender balance is slower and less stable than it first appears. 

In the first Gender Parity Index, 40 states earned a “D” grade (< 25.0) or worse (< 10.0); the remaining ten states were split evenly between “Cs” (< 33.0) and “Bs” (< 50.0), and no state achieved an “A” (50.0 and above). Ten years later, Maine and Oregon have both achieved an “A” for the first time, 24 states are split evenly between “Bs” and “Cs,” 23 states have earned a “D,” and Louisiana is the only failing state. 

The 2023 Index reflects recent record-breaking progress for women in the U.S. government, particularly state executives. Following the 2022 elections, 12 states have women governors, breaking the previous record of nine. Correspondingly, six of the top ten states in the 2023 GPI have women governors, including Maine (1st), Oregon (2nd), Michigan (3rd), New Mexico (4th), Iowa (7th), and Massachusetts (9th). 

While it is true that women’s representation has increased, the 2023 GPI shows that women are still underrepresented at every level of government in the U.S., holding just one-third of all elected positions, despite comprising over 50% of the population. Women of color are further underrepresented, holding approximately one-tenth of all elected positions. This year’s GPI further shows that:

• Record-breaking wins have resulted in incremental gains for women. Headlines that announce record highs for women in politics are often misleading; women remain underrepresented at every level of government. Net gains for women are generally smaller than they appear, slowing progress.
• Not every state is on an upward trajectory toward parity; some states, such as New Hampshire and Louisiana, have even lost progress over time. 
  • New Hampshire ranked first and achieved an “A” between 2015-2018 and again in 2020; it now ranks 10th with a score of 41/100 (grade: B).
  • Louisiana ranked 28th in the first GPI with a score of 16/100 (grade: D); it now has a score of 9/100 (grade: F) and ranks 50th in the 2023 GPI.
• Gains for women are concentrated in the Northeast and West Coast, while women’s representation in Midwestern and Southern states lags far behind. 
• Democratic women are outpacing Republican women in elected office, suggesting that progress toward parity will eventually slow unless a) more Republican women are elected or b) more Democratic women than men are elected.
• Systemic reform is needed to level the playing field and create more opportunities for women to enter and remain in office. Rather than replace existing candidate-focused strategies, systemic reforms can function in a complementary manner to bring out the best of both strategies. 

2023 Report

In the 2021 ranked choice voting primary elections, women in New York City made history, securing a majority on the city council. Two years later, RepresentWomen sought to uncover the impact of a woman majority council, as well as which barriers persist despite these women being in office.

The questions we sought to answer include:

1. What are the primary benefits of having a woman majority council? More specifically, who benefits from a woman majority and why?
2. What challenges and barriers remain, despite a woman majority, and what needs to be done to sustain a gender-balanced council?
3. Which legislation passed by women in the past session is most notable and why? Does this notable legislation disproportionately impact women?
4. Why were women essential in getting these issues to the table? Would these issues have been addressed otherwise?

Our research found that a woman of color majority council had a significant impact on both 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. Having women in leadership positions as well as a built-in majority on the Women’s Caucus were both instrumental in creating this impact. 

In sum, the impact of a woman majority city council includes: 

1. Women in leadership positions create a ripple effect, enabling women to uplift one another and reducing bias across the council.
2. Diversity on the council leads to a shift in priorities; Since the majority women of color council better mirrors the demographics of the city, this allows for a wider variety of issues to be brought to the table. 
3. A larger Women’s Caucus has become more legislatively efficient, particularly regarding reproductive rights and maternal healthcare. With a built-in majority, the women don’t have to fight to explain why these issues are essential. 
4. Structural barriers persist, impacting the woman council members' day-to-day work. With dated buildings and protocols, women face barriers that are unique and more pervasive than for their men counterparts.

All New Yorkers benefit from a diverse council. The council’s shared lived experiences with their constituents, different legislative perspectives, and representation of their communities make its members prone to collaborate, understand one another, and support each other to serve both their districts and the city as a whole.

Download Analysis

infogram_0_02d14ad5-03ff-4730-93c5-9432ab0bdda82022 International Data Dashboardhttps://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed.js?B1Otext/javascript

Our International Voting Systems Dashboard has five tabs:

1. Parliaments and rankings 

This tab shows the structure of government, the rank for women's representation (based on the percentage of women in the lower house), the number of women elected, and the percentages of women in the chambers.

2. Voting systems of parliaments

This tab shows the type of voting system used, along with sub-categories, and the date of the most recent election.

3. Gender quotas

This tab details the types of gender quotas implemented in each chamber of parliament.

4. Heads of state and government

This tab shows the current Heads of State (HoS) and Government (HoG) & their respective genders (F or M), election dates, and titles. This tab also

5. Cabinets

This section shows the number of cabinet members, the number of women in the cabinet, the percentage of women in the cabinet, and the most recent verification date.

The goal of this dashboard is to contextualize the U.S. within the world, show the unique systems used around the globe, and show where women's representation is the highest. 

This dashboard is interactive! Scroll over each country to see the data. 

This 2023 International Voting Systems Snapshot ranks countries according to women's representation in the lower house of their national parliament. As displayed in our 2023 International Voting Systems Memo, most countries ranked above the U.S. have a proportional voting system, and women are least represented in countries with plurality-majority systems. These findings emphasize the need to study the impact of voting systems, as well as why implementing proportional voting is vital to leveling the playing field for women in the U.S.  

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These two charts show that although women have made gains in terms of political representation, progress has been slow and incremental. Without systems-level and candidate-level changes being implemented in tandem, it is unlikely we will see gender-balanced governance within our lifetimes. 

Notably, in 2023 less than 10 countries have achieved gender parity. 

In 2022, we released an interactive dashboard to present the latest data on women's representation in ranked choice cities. In addition to providing summary data on where ranked choice voting (RCV) is used and its impact on local representation, the RCV Dashboard includes updated case studies on the impact of ranked voting on women's representation in Cambridge, New York City, the Bay Area, and Utah.

For more information about RCV and its impact on women's representation, check out our 2023 Ranked Choice Voting Memo.

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Updated: January 2023

The following memo presents an update to our 2020 analysis of voting systems in the U.S. and their impact on women’s representation. 

Overall, we have found that women continue to fare better in jurisdictions that use ranked choice voting than in cities with plurality voting systems. Of the 30 cities that use ranked choice voting to elect their executives (mayors), 12 (40%) are currently represented by women. In the 41 cities that use ranked choice voting to elect their legislatures (councils, boards), almost half of all electeds (137 of 282, or 49%) are women.

RCV remains one of the most promising tools for advancing women’s representation in the United States.

For more information about our work and the resources we provide, please contact our team at [email protected].

Released: January 23, 2023

Executive Summary: 

RCV is one of the most promising tools for advancing women’s representation in the United States.  Of the 30 cities that use ranked choice voting to elect their executives (mayors), 12 (40%) are currently represented by women. In the 41 cities that use ranked choice voting to elect their legislatures (councils, boards), almost half of all electeds (137 of 282, or 49%) are women. 

Systems-level strategies, like RCV, advance gender parity by creating a level playing field for all candidates and eliminating the opportunity barriers that exist under plurality voting. Though women are underrepresented at every level of government in the U.S., holding less than one-third of all elected positions, women in ranked choice jurisdictions are better represented.  

Ranked Choice Voting creates more opportunities for women to run and win by:

1. Mitigating vote splitting and the spoiler effect. Women, more often than men, are told to “wait their turn” and are viewed as less electable by party leaders in plurality elections. In RCV elections, multiple women can run without splitting the vote and spoiling an election. 
2. Increasing campaign civility. Positive campaigning benefits both candidates and voters. When candidates are less focused on launching or defending negative attacks from competitors, they can spend more time campaigning on issues that matter to voters to earn broader support. 
3. Removing a need for costly runoff elections. Runoffs are often expensive and lead to lower voter turnout. RCV mitigates this by acting as an “instant runoff” where voters’ second and third choices are counted immediately. For women candidates, who often need to outraise men to win, RCV helps them focus on what matters most: connecting with voters.
4. Increasing candidate-voter engagement and voter turnout. In RCV, candidates are incentivized to seek broader support in the form of first-, second-, and third-choice votes. This approach results in voters feeling they have more of a stake in the election, boosting turnout. 

Ranked choice voting advances women’s representation at the state and city level: 

Women’s Representation in RCV Cities

The impact of RCV on women’s representation is best demonstrated at the local level, which has long been the testing ground for new voting systems. Of the 30 mayors in RCV cities today, 12 (40%) are women, nine are people of color (30%), and four are women of color (13%). In city councils, 137 of 282 RCV seats (49%) are held by women, 96 by people of color (34%), and 55 (20%) by women of color. Comparatively, women held 32% of all local offices as of March 2022. 

Women’s Representation in RCV States

RCV is currently used at the state-level in two states, Maine and Alaska. Maine became the first state to use ranked choice voting in 2018. That same year, Janet Mills became the first woman governor of Maine and first governor elected by ranked choice voting following the state’s first ranked choice primary. In other statewide offices, there was a 6.4% increase in women candidates and 9.3% increase in women winners from the 2014/16 non-RCV elections to the 2018/20 RCV elections. Correspondingly, Maine’s parity score in our annual Gender Parity Index has steadily risen since RCV was first introduced. Alaska’s first use of RCV took place in 2022.

View the Memo 

Women consist of over half the world's population, but continue to be vastly underrepresented in political office worldwide. Existing research shows that diversity among political officeholders allows for more effective lawmaking; women's political representation is a vital component in realizing this goal. 

A number of electoral reforms allows for women to run, win, serve, and lead more effectively. Ranked choice voting is one of these systems-level changes. This snapshot displays where RCV is currently used in the U.S., how RCV helps women win, data regarding women and RCV at the local level, and testemonials from women elected by RCV.

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Ranked choice voting has positive impacts for women's representation in politics; this snapshot displays women's representation in cities that have implemented RCV as of January 2023. When looking at the totality of RCV-elected council members, women consist of just under 50%. Read more about RCV and women's representation in our 2023 memo here. 

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Released: November 2022

In 2022, we released a follow-up to our report on women's representation in New York City, “Why Women Won in 2021.” In the report, we expand upon and re-evaluate our findings by researching 1) women’s representation in the next-largest cities in the U.S., and 2) which of the factors we observed in NYC are also present in these cities. The report concludes with a list of guiding takeaways,  aimed at changemakers interested in bringing the best practices and strategies that worked in New York City to other major cities. 

The Four Factors

Four conditions were uniquely met in New York, and thus examined in the next 100 largest cities. These were the presence of: (1) term limits, (2) public financing, (3) ranked choice voting, and (4) candidate organizations. Including NYC, 52% of the cities meet at least one of the four conditions.

Where Next?

Including NYC, 27 of the top 100 cities have councils majority-led (50% +1) by women and an additional 13 cities are at parity with women holding 50% of all seats. Just one city other than NYC has all four of the systems-focused and candidate-focused factors that make up the twin-track ecosystem: San Francisco. Four cities have two of the four factors we traced: Oakland, Denver, Long Beach, and Los Angeles.

Our recommendations for “where next” are split between four cities. Depending on whether our partners are more interested in 1) achieving gender balance where it is lacking, or 2) sustaining current levels of women’s representation where it exists, our suggested target cities change. 

Our first option suggests focussing on Los Angeles and San Francisco. In Los Angeles, there is an opportunity for RCV and a local WCG to be introduced. Though San Francisco technically already has all four twin-track factors, there is room for building on the existing infrastructure to ensure that more women run viable campaigns in each election.

Our second option suggests focus should be on Denver, and Long Beach. Many cities in the top 100 have small city councils, showing there are clear opportunities to invest in better systems and candidate support infrastructure in all parts of the country. Per our initial analysis, these two cities would benefit from ranked choice voting and local WCGs. Since both have small councils and term limits, women’s representation is likely to fluctuate in the future without additional support.

Key Takeaways

• A twin-track approach creates viable, local-level opportunities for women. A twin-track approach is the best way to achieve gender balance in our lifetimes. Moreover, both tracks must be multidimensional in depth. The candidate track must go beyond recruitment, and the systems track must involve efficient implementation and education. 

• The results of the twin-track approach will inevitably vary in every city. Political environments and agendas, the role of local media, the rate of pay for officeholders, and other factors are not consistent across the U.S. But, even if the magnitude of the results are different, the components within the twin-track approach have proven to be beneficial and merit implementation. 

• Actualizing the twin-track approach requires increased financial support. Gratuitous support from local community members can be effective but is not sustainable. In order to maintain training programs, host voter education initiatives, and provide endorsed candidates with additional funding, women's candidate groups need the help of philanthropists, changemakers, and partner organizations alike. 

View the Report