Did you know that only 15% of members of the U.S. House of Representatives are female? Just 66 seats (43 Dem and 23 Rep) out of 435 total. I was totally unaware of this statistic until recently, but does that not just blow your mind?
The U.S. Senate is about the same at 14%. And because there are three states -- California, Maine and Washington -- that have two female senators, that means there are 39 states with no women in the Senate. There are 24 states with no women in the House, and 18 states with no women at all representing them at the federal level, either in the House or Senate! This means that when the congressional delegations from Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah or Vermont sit down for a friendly chat about the issues of the day, there are no women at the table.
And a bunch of the major issues right now disproportionately affect women:
(more on the flip ...)
- Social Security: women make up 58% of of all Social Security beneficiaries 65 and older, and 71% of all beneficiaries 85 and older
- Pension and Retirement Funds: women are only half as likely to receive a pension as men, and those who do receive only half as much -- which is one reason women make up 75% of the nation's 4 million elderly poor
- Bankruptcy: it is estimated that 1 million women will file for bankruptcy this year, outnumbering men by about 150,000
- Student Loan Debt: 774,000 women are expected to graduate with a bachelor's degree in 2005, compared to 578,000 men, which is great for women, but it also means that the increasing rates of student loan debt (39% of student borrowers now graduate with unmanageable levels of debt) disproportionally affect women
- Reproductive Rights: Need I say anything here?
- Wage Equity: okay, this one actually isn't an issue being discussed, but for cripe's sake why not? Why is it that in 2005 women get 76 cents on the dollar compared to men for equal work? Another statistic that blows my mind! And makes me wonder how much that guy in the cube next to me makes ...
And even for those areas where women are not necessarily disproportionately affected, we still make up a lot of the affected population. For instance, 48% of the U.S. labor force is women. So where is our seat at the table when it comes to making labor decisions?
And I don't mean to say that men can't make fair and equitable decisions. But to me, part of having a representative democracy means having all voices represented. And isn't it part of the American ideal that any kid can grow up to be President? Or Senator? Or Representative? Is that only for boys? Or do girls get a shot, too?
So what do we do about it ...
Well, in the House that's easy, right? All the seats come up for election in 2006, so lets just elect 50% women. Or better yet, how about 85% women -- turnabout is fair play after all ... right???
Wait, what is that you say? 95% of the time the incumbent wins?? Only about 5% of congressional seats are considered to be at play in any given election year? Well, besides the obvious craziness of that fact, that says to me that we need as many female candidates as possible running for that tiny sliver of "open" seats. And when we have a good female candidate already in the race -- total bonus!!!
In 2004 there were 88 Democratic Nominees for U.S. House who were women. 37 were incumbents, 41 were challenging an incumbent, and 11 were running for open seats. 42 female Democratic Nominees won in 2004 -- 37 incumbents, 1 challenger, and 4 who ran for open seats. Women gained a total of 6 seats in the house in 2004 (4 D, 2 R). In the last 5 elections, female incumbents won 98% of the time (slightly higher that the rate for men), 3% of female challengers won, and 34% of women running for open seats won. Right now it is thought that there will be 18 open seats in the U.S. House in 2006. If every single seat was won by a female candidate, and if every single female incumbent held her seat, that would bump us up to a whopping 19% of the U.S. House.
And I realize that lack of women in the house is not the greatest evil we are facing in the world right now, which is why in the title I only said that it sucks, not that it sucks ass. (Which was my original title.)
Anyway, my point is that if we care at all about ever having some type of gender equity in our legislative bodies, when there is a good female candidate running for office, we need to support the heck out of them!
And I am sure it is a surprise to no one that the candidate that immediately comes to my mind is Christine Cegelis. This is a campaign that I have been dedicated to for over a year now. Christine got 44.2% of the vote against Henry Hyde in 2004 in IL-06, and she is running again in 2006. Her district is in the suburbs of Chicago, so if you live in the Chicagoland area, we desperately need people to canvas, to march in parades, to come to volunteer nights, to staff summer festivals. And of course right now we are fighting for every dollar we can get before the June 30th fundraising deadline ...
(Go to http://www.cegelisforcongress.com for more info.)
But I would also like folks to consider this a call to let us know about the fabulous female candidates in your state .... Who's out there? Who is running? Who is rumoured to run? Who needs our support? Tell us about them!
And I'll start things off by mentioning, in addition to Christine Cegelis, Melissa Bean, IL-08. She won against Phil Crane in 2004 as a second time candidate, same as Christine is this year. She's not a challenger, but she will need our support to keep that seat.
So, how about it folks, what female candidates in your area are lookin' good for 2006?
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Sources:
http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts/Officeholders/cawpfs.html
http://www.now.org/issues/economic/social/030405points.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0404/p13s01-wmgn.html
http://nces.ed.gov//programs/digest/d03/tables/dt249.asp
http://www.pirg.org/highered/burdenofborrowing.html
http://www.pay-equity.org/
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1995/11/art3exc.htm
http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts/CanHistory/canwincong_histsum.pdf
http://www.fairvote.org/reports/1995/chp6/newman.html
http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.asp?cycle=2002
http://www.withoutboundaries.com/OPENSEATS.html