Republican Women in Congress: an Endangered Species?

The Atlantic Monthly website ran an interesting article about a poll of Americans' views on women in Congress.  The left-leaning Atlantic enjoyed playing up the finding that only 23% of Republicans would want more women elected to Congress.  On first reading, it appears that a case of slight political misogyny is a requirement for Republican Party membership.  I can see some holes in the data, as many folk that used to consider themselves Republican now consider themselves independent, and those that continue to proclaim a Republican identity may have more fringe beliefs.

But then I looked up some data on women in Congress.  The Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics, part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, has a simple two page summary of the history of women in Congress.  It's all facts, no spin, so it's worth a look.  As is my habit, I downloaded some of the data and played with it.  I just input the numbers of women in office now and compared it with the total elected to office in US history.  I also compared the percentages of women among elected Democrats and Republicans.


Some interesting things to notice.
  • Today, women compose about the same percentage of both assemblies, 20% of the Senate and about 18% of the House.  Women make up 31% of Senate Democrats and 30% of House Democrats.    Women only make up 9% of Senate Republicans and 8% of House Republicans.  
  • Of all women elected to the House, 31% are in office today.  Of all women elected to the Senate, 61% are in office today.  Among Democratic women elected to office, over 3/4 of those elected to the Senate and over 1/3 of those elected to the House are in office today.  Among Republican women elected to office, only 1/3 are in the Senate and 1/5 of those elected to the  House are in office today.
  • Over history, female Democrats outnumber female Republicans in both assemblies, but by less than a ratio of 2 to 1.  In the current congress however, House female Democratic women outnumber Republican women by a ratio of over 3 to 1 and Senate Democratic women outnumber Republican women by a ratio of 5 to 1.
More women are elected as Democrats to both houses than as Republicans, both historically and currently.  But Republican women, compared to their Democratic colleagues, are not doing as well getting elected to office today as in the past.  On top of that they have more difficulty being re-elected than their Democratic colleagues.   As districts tend to be gerrymandered with ideological purity in mind, primaries become the main elections for House elections.  The poll says only 23% of Republicans would like more women elected to office, but the elections in the gerrymandered districts show it could be less.  Women make up ridiculously small proportions (less than 10%) of the Republican party caucuses in both assemblies.

In the recent government shutdown, it was women Senators, Republican and Democrats, who formed the first nucleus of efforts to compromise to end the madness.  The ability to find common ground is the essential skill or talent needed for government to run smoothly.  Perhaps we need more women to replace men in both assemblies for our government to work a little better.









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