I don't mean to criticize all the progressive, forward-thinking men out there who have been so supportive of women's rights. However, it does seem sort of odd that we're talking about "women's rights" when women are a majority of the U.S. population. If women were represented in government in the same proportions as they are in the population, is it likely that we'd still be having these discussions about access to contraception? Or that we'd have candidates in a major political party who can't even come out and criticize the smearing of a young woman simply for testifying in Washington?
One of the problems here is that the majority of Americans are not adequately represented in government. But how bad is it? How exactly does the U.S. stack up in terms of women in government? The Guardian marks International Women's Day (tomorrow) by taking a look at percentages of women in national legislatures. It's somewhat disheartening.
The good news: Yes, we've made progress around the world. The bad news? There are only two countries in the world where women are at least 50% of one legislative chamber: Rwanda and Andorra.
The U.S., which of course has never had a female head of state, ranks a dismal 78th in percent of women in the lower legislative house, tied with Turkmenistan and behind nations such as Morocco, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.
The U.S. House and Senate have roughly the same 17% female legislators; in the Senate. the U.S. exactly ties Pakistan with having 17 out of 100 female representatives.
The U.S. ranks ahead of Ireland in proportion of women in its lower house (but of course Ireland has had a female president), although Ireland has a far higher 30% women in its upper house; Japan, which also has a somewhat higher proportion of women in its upper house (18.6% vs. 17%); and Korea, as well as India. However, we are behind others such as Indonesia, Singapore and China.
I don't believe in quotas, and I don't expect exactly proportional representation. But when a majority of the population has less than 17% of the representation, there's a problem. And we've seen the results of that in the past couple of weeks. If half of Congress were women, even though some of them would end up being like Michele Bachmann, I think it much more likely that most wouldn't tolerate the kind of public discourse we've been having about women's health issues. Combined with progressive and fair-minded male legislators, there would be such a solid majority against bills like forced vaginal probes and denying access to contraceptives, that we wouldn't be wasting time on such issues and could focus more of our energies on meeting the real challenges facing our nation.
I hope you'll all join me in celebrating International Women's Day tomorrow by donating to the favorite female candidate of your choice. (If you don't have one, may I offer a suggestion?)