Front row (from left): Althea Stevens, Marjorie Velázquez, Lynn Schulman, Gale Brewer, Kamillah Hanks, Vickie Paladino, Sandy Nurse, Tiffany Cabán, Shahana Hanif, and Julie Won. Middle row: Farah Louis, Joann Ariola, Linda Lee, Julie Menin, Darlene Mealy, and Mercedes Narcisse. Back row: Amanda Farías, Alexa Avilés, Rita Joseph, Crystal Hudson, Carmen De La Rosa, Nantasha Williams, and Pierina Sanchez. Not pictured: Adrienne Adams, Diana Ayala, Selvena Brooks-Powers, Jennifer Gutiérrez, Kristin Richardson Jordan, Carlina Rivera, Sandra Ung, and Inna Vernikov. Photo: Victor Llorente/Victor Llorente
Dear friends,
As of this week, women hold 31 of the 51 seats on the New York City Council. While there was no single factor that led to this outcome the newest ingredient in the mix was the
introduction of ranked choice voting and organizations like
21 in 21 that focused on using RCV in every part of the recruitment and endorsement process so that the women running knew how to use the system to their advantage.
Dear friends,
As we prepare to bid farewell to a year that has been so hard for so many it seems timely to share a few stories that offer food for thought and hope for the coming year.
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bell hooks, painted by Melanie Humble
For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed? bell hooks
Dear fans of gender balance in politics,
Celebrated and beloved feminist author bell hooks died this week sparking an outpouring of appreciation for her life and work that influenced so many of us. This
obituary from the
LA Times offers a window into her childhood:
Born Sept. 25, 1952, and raised in Hopkinsville, Ky., hooks was the fourth of seven siblings born to Veodis and Rosa Bell Watkins. Her love of reading began as a child, and she learned to read and write at an early age. Her sisters, who shared an upstairs bedroom with her, said she would always keep the light on well into the night and would often hear the sounds of her writing or turning a page before appealing to their mother to get her to stop.
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Many women around the world—as with these traders in Liberia—work in the informal economy (ImageArc/shutterstock.com)
Dear fans of gender balance in politics,
Those who are concerned about the health of democracy in the United States - which I believe should be all of us - would do well to read
this sharp piece by
Irune Aguirrezabal about a new social contract based on meeting the needs of women:
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Dear fans of women's representation,
I suspect many readers in the United States are celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family this weekend so I will keep this missive short & sweet!
In August my daughters and I drove to North Carolina to visit RepresentWomen's artist in residence, Melanie Humble. As we drove south, we listened to
Braiding Sweetgraass by Robin Wall Kimmerer -- a member of
Potawatomi Nation. Through the author's rich storytelling we learned about the Thanksgiving Prayer, recited by the six nations of the
Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) at the opening and closing of meetings:
Dear fans of women's representation and gender balance in politics,
This week has been a busy one in Washington, DC with important discussions about redistricting on Capitol Hill, in-person fundraising events with democracy advocates, and the launch of
More Voice DC in support of ranked choice voting for the District of Columbia. This morning I spoke at a press conference in support of the RCV measure introduced by council member
Christina Henderson and joined dozens of other supporters in testifying before the DC Council in support of the
VOICE Act:
Jeannette Rankin painted by Melanie Humble
Dear fans of gender balance in politics,
On November 10, 1916
Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, became the first woman elected to the United States Congress. Rankin was elected from a multi-seat district but served just one term because Democrats switched to single winner districts while she was in office making it all but impossible for her to win re-election in 1918. Rankin, a devoted suffragist and pacifist, ran again and served a second term from 1941-1943:
Dear fans of gender balance in politics,
Nearly a century after
the first woman was elected to the NYC council, women now hold 61% of the seats and the majority of those women are young women of color. Ranked choice voting was a key ingredient to women's electoral success in 1937 and in 2021.
As my colleague
Courtney Lamendola puts it "
one of the most promising aspects of ranked-choice voting comes down to how it redefines "electability" for women candidates. While voters and party leaders might otherwise worry about multiple women candidates running against one another in a winner-take-all election, in RCV elections, multiple women can run without splitting the vote, which has had a positive effect on the number of women running and winning in ranked-choice voting elections."
Greta Thunberg, painted by Melanie Humble
Dear friends,
Over the coming weeks advocates, experts, and elected officials will gather in Glasgow, Scotland for
COP26, an annual United Nations summit on climate change. My daughter
Becca Richie will be there with her colleagues from
Climate Clock to help pressure nations to commit to immediate and impactful measures to address the existential threats to our climate and planet.
Dear friends,
The
Ascend Fund announced
grants this week to groups in Washington Michigan, and Mississippi to advance women's representation in state legislatures. This is a terrific example of investing in strategies to better understand the best practices to get to gender balance in politics in our lifetimes.
Barbara Rodriguez, wrote
this article in
The 19th* about the grants that features comments from Ascend Fund director
Abbie Hodgson:
A Seattle-based fund is pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into recruiting women to run for statehouse seats in three states, part of its effort to close the gender gap in American politics.
The group, called the Ascend Fund, announced Tuesday that it has awarded $600,000 to 13 nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations that will work to recruit and train statehouse candidates from across the political spectrum in Michigan, Mississippi and Washington. The groups will receive grant funding of $15,000 to $100,000, with an average award of $50,000.
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