Women being elected to local, state or federal offices
Mujeres en el gobierno
Women have historically been underrepresented in politics and other institutions throughout many nations. Even though more women are being elected to leadership positions in government and state, this historical trend still exists.
There may be a variety of obstacles that women must overcome to engage in politics and hold leadership positions. Many nations are looking into policies to boost women’s involvement in politics. Today, nevertheless, more women are aiming for leadership roles.
Milestones in Recent Years
Elizabeth Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, became the first female vice chair of the Senate Democratic Conference in 2017. Danica Roem became the first openly transgender person to be elected and serve as a state legislator in the United States. The Colorado General Assembly’s speaker, Crisanta Duran, is the first Latina to hold that position in a state legislature.
Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids became the first Native American women elected to Congress in 2018. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar were elected as the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. And the nation’s first Democratic woman of the color governor was Michele Lujan Grisham.
In 2019, Nevada became the first state where women had a majority of seats in the state legislature. Women possess most of the seats, but only in the Assembly chamber, where they occupy 23 of its 42 seats.
Representative Tulsi Gabbard, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Representative Marianne Williamson publicly declared their candidacies for president in 2019. More than two women ran for president in the same major party’s primary for the first time in history.
Former Vice President Joe Biden chose US Senator Kamala Harris as his running partner for the 2020 presidential election in August of that year. Harris is the first multiracial woman, the first South Asian woman, the first Black woman, and the first woman of color to be chosen as the running mate on a major-party ticket.
Harris joins Sarah Palin and Geraldine Ferraro as the third women in history to be selected as a vice presidential candidate. She also joins Hillary Clinton as the fourth woman named to a major-party presidential ticket.
Sen. Kamala Harris of the United States won the vice presidential election in 2020, making history as the first woman, woman of color, Black woman, and South Asian woman to hold this position.
Deb Haaland was the first Native American to hold a position in a presidential cabinet when President Joseph Biden chose her to be secretary of the interior in 2021.
Additionally, President Joseph Biden named Rachel Levine as assistant secretary for health. She became the highest-ranking openly transgender official in US history after being approved by the US Senate.
Statistics
142 of the 535 seats in the United States Congress are held by women as of 2021. That amounts to 26.5%; 105 are Democrats, and 37 are Republicans. Women have 118 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. That amounts to 27.1%, of which 29 Republicans and 89 Democrats.
Women occupy 24 of the 100 seats in the Senate. That is 24 percent, with 16 Democrats and 8 Republicans. Only 9.5% of all Congresspeople are women of color. Fifty-one, or 35.9%, of the 142 female members of Congress are people of color.
Currently, 48 women of color serve in the Senate and three in the House of Representatives. In the history of the United States, 55 women have held a total of 62 cabinet or cabinet-level positions.
President Joe Biden has chosen twelve women to hold cabinet-level positions. If every nomination is approved, there will be 50% women in the President’s Cabinet. 2021 saw nine female governors in the US. Less than one-third of statewide elected executive positions are held by women nationwide.
There are 17 women of color among the state’s elected executive officers. That amounts to 5%. Currently, women make up 30.8% of state lawmakers in the US. 1,719 seats in the state house or assembly and 557 seats in the state senate are held by women. Compared to 1971, more than five times as many women work in state legislatures.
23.3% of all US cities with more than 30,000 citizens have a female mayor as of June 2020. Among the 100 largest cities in the United States, 27 women are presently mayors. These mayors include ten black women. These 10 ladies comprise two Latinas, two Asian Pacific Islander women, and six Black women.
