Dear Readers,
This week, the RepresentWomen team attended Netroots Nation, an annual conference that draws up to 4,000 attendees from around the world! Attendees include politicians, online organizers, grassroots activists, and independent media creators. Team members Ashley Thurston and Alissa Bombardier Shaw are excited to attend workshops and connect with other individuals committed to accelerating progress toward gender balance.
During an election year, such connections are crucial for strategizing towards a 21st century democracy, While no woman is on the presidential ballot currently, women are an integral part of the democratic process. This week’s Weekend Reading examines the key roles women are currently playing in politics, as candidates, elected offcials and voters in the United States and across the globe.
Kamala Harris: A Strong Candidate for America's Next President
Credit: Steve Marcus
America needs a woman president. Vice President Kamala Harris is the best alternative if President Joe Biden withdraws from the race. Harris, endorsed by influential figures and polling well against Trump, is capable of energizing key voter demographics and building upon Biden’s achievements.
Check out my new op-ed on RepresentWomen’s website:
The best alternative for Democrats would be Vice President Kamala Harris. I support Jim Clyburn’s suggestion of a mini-primary, especially one with ranked choice voting and deliberative tools to define an informed consensus. But I’m confident Harris would win that contest. Outside of Michelle Obama, Harris polls best against Trump. She won a SurveyUSA ranked choice voting poll in 2020 about who Biden should pick as VP. She’s been vetted on a national ticket that beat Trump and is ready to step in as president since 2021. Congressional leaders Clyburn and Hakeem Jeffries have signaled she’s their choice if Biden withdraws.
Men like Gavin Newsom, Andy Beshear, Josh Shapiro, Jamie Raskin, Pete Buttigieg, Jared Polis, and JB Pritzker can be vice presidents. With reproductive freedom a defining campaign issue and with women poised to surpass men among Democratic state legislators, Democrats need a woman to lead the party and defeat Trump.
Some may be concerned that Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016 makes it risky to nominate another woman. Yet Clinton won a significant popular vote majority, and even Trump was surprised he swept the close swing states. Now he’s been exposed for what he is: a misogynist who named three of the five Supreme Court Justices who took away abortion rights.
Harris is experienced but no embodiment of the “swamp." She’s 19 years younger than Trump, who would become our nation’s oldest president if elected and serving a full term. As Ohio's Tim Ryan argued in recently endorsing her, “She would energize the Black, brown, and Asian Pacific members of our coalition. (Read Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, Charlotte, Miami, and Milwaukee.)"
Immigrant Women May Become a Key Voting Demographic in 2024 Election
Credit: Sarah L. Voisin
As we approach the presidential elections, questions about factors that will determine the outcome arise. Immigrant women,who are registering to vote at higher rates than men, are poised to play a significant role in the 2024 presidential election. Factors like gender disparities in eligibility, deportation rates, and community leadership contribute to higher naturalization rates among women.
Various perspectives are essential to a healthy democracy. The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) works to register these new voters, recognizing the pivotal role women play in democracy.
Barbara Rodriguez from The 19th reports:
In a pivotal election year where the presidential contests in some battleground states may be decided by a few thousand votes, the turnout of eligible immigrant women voters — some of whom say they’re mindful of how immigration policy is being debated — could decide the outcome of the rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump…
Flores believes another reason women are becoming naturalized citizens at a higher rate is because women tend to lead community outreach that helps people with immigration and citizenship services. Flores said that creates a loop in which they’re more likely to have the information they need to begin the lengthy application process.
“We’re seeing that a lot of them are really the ones that are kind of taking leadership and saying, ‘Naturalization has transformed my life. I really kind of want to pay it forward,’ Flores added. “So we’re seeing a lot of these wonderful ‘community navigators’ becoming citizens themselves and then also being part of cohorts that are then getting deputized on naturalization and going out there in the community.”
In South Carolina, 3 G.O.P. Women Fought an Abortion Ban. They Lost Their Races.
Source: RepresentWomen’s 2023 Gender Parity Index
In 2023, five women from across the political spectrum in South Carolina joined together to prevent a near-total abortion ban from taking place in the state. For their efforts they received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. All three women have since lost their seat in public office.
In 2023, South Carolina received a D score on RepresentWomen’s Gender Parity Index, and ranked 42nd in the nation for the number of women elected at the local, state, and national levels. Now, it is likely that no Republican women will serve in the upcoming legislative session.
Kate Zernike from The New York Times reports:
All three of the Republican women in the group of five — the others were a Democrat and an independent — faced primary challenges, and all three have now lost. State Senator Katrina Shealy, who was the only female member of the chamber after she won in 2012, failed to win a runoff on Tuesday against the son of a former legislator.
The two others lost earlier this month: Penry Gustafson lost by a 64 point margin; Sandy Senn lost by 33 votes, small enough to trigger a recount, but conceded the race before that.
Women Gradually Rise in Japanese Politics, but Face Deep Challenges.
Earlier this month, Japan held elections where Yuriko Koike won a landmark third term as governor of Tokyo. Her closest opponent was Renhō Saitō, a former lawmaker from an opposing political party. Koike’s win signals a shift in Japan’s traditionally male-dominated environment, but there is still a lot of distance to cover to reach parity in the Japanese government.
Members of the main opposition party in Japan hope to have women make up 30% of candidates in the next national election. Prime Minister Furimo Kishida also vowed to achieve 30% female representation in government and recruit more female candidates over the next decade.
In Japan, women are often expected to maintain traditional duties like raising children and taking care of the elderly. This presents a problem when elected officials are expected to travel for work. Geography also plays a factor in the number of women who are elected at the local level.
Mari Yamaguchi of the Associated Press writes
Women make up about 30% of the Tokyo assembly, and their presence in town assemblies in urban areas is also growing. On average, female representation in more than 1,740 Japanese local assemblies doubled to 14.5% in 2021 from 20 years ago. There are growing calls for more female voices in politics.
But in rural areas, where more traditional gender roles are more usual, 226, or 13% of the total, had “zero women” assemblies last year, according to the Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office.
In parliament, where conservative Liberal Democrats have been in power almost uninterruptedly since the end of World War II, female representation in the lower house is 10.3%, putting Japan 163rd among 190 countries, according to a report by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union in April.
UK General Elections: Record Number of Women Elected Into the House of Commons.
Credit: RepresentWomen
The 2024 United Kingdom General Elections set a new record with 242 women members of parliament elected to the House of Commons, surpassing the previous record of 220 in 2019. This brings the proportion of women MPs to the highest ever. Despite this record high, the new number of women MPs is still under 50 percent, meaning that the House of Commons has yet to achieve gender balance.
Even though the UK has the same voting system as the United States, they are more actively working meet gender quotas to ensure women run for office. Our ally, The Fawcett Society is a UK-based campaigning for women's rights, check out their website to learn more about gender equality efforts in the UK.
Firstpost reports:
As the United Kingdom woke up to a new government, the 2024 General Elections broke several records. One of them was that the polls saw a record number of female lawmakers being elected in the House of Commons.
When the House of Commons comes back with a brand new party taking the reign, there will be at least 242 female MPs in the new government. The previous record was not far off, it was set in 2019 when 220 women were elected to the House of Commons.
In 2019, the proportion of female MPs reached 34%, the highest portion of either chamber in parliament to date. Before that in 2017, it was 207 and 196 in 2015.
RCV Poll of the Week
As fun as it is to spend time outside during the summer, there is nothing quite like binge-watching a new season of television in an air-conditioned room. All of the different streaming services bring no shortage of summer TV shows. Take this poll to let us know what you are watching this summer!
Thanks to the terrific team at RepresentWomen for putting this week’s edition of Weekend Reading together while I spend a week with my family at our beloved cabin in the New Jersey Pine Barrens — where the cedar streams run deep and cool & the 🫐 are ripe!
That's all for this week. Enjoy your weekend!
-The RepresentWomen Team
P.S.
Compensation commissions serve as one of the tools to modernize state legislatures and ensure state elected officials are paid equitably. Read more about their impact in this article written by RepresentWomen’s own Steph Scaglia and Arianna Conte. The full report on compensation commissions can be found here.