You should run some of these women for politics.
The New Congress Has A Record Number Of Women — But Very Few Republican Women
Rep.-elect Carol Miller, R-W.V., will be the only new women member of the House GOP in the new Congress.
A Record Number Of Women Will Serve In Congress (With Potentially More To Come)
To be clear, women are underrepresented on both sides of the aisle in Congress. Just under 1 in 4 members will be women next session. But less than 1 in 10 Republican members will be women.
And their numbers will decline this year, both at the national and state level — in Congress, there will be
20 GOP women, down from the
current 29. And in state legislatures, there will be
660 Republican women, down from
705 now. That has people like Nickloes worried that the party could alienate voters and do a less effective job of governing.
First Latina Elected To Congress Retires With A Warning To Republicans
In a recent interview with NPR, retiring
Florida Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen also expressed outrage at the declining number of GOP women in Congress.
"It is unbelievable. It is astounding. It is eye-popping, and I hope that our Republican leaders see this as a challenge and a problem that we need to fix," she said.
One reason Republican women are poorly represented at the national level is that they're also relatively scarce in state legislatures, which are traditionally a training ground for Congress.
Why Aren't More Women In Office? Even Within Parties, There's Big Disagreement
Both parties also have different ideas about how important diversity is. One in 3 Republicans believe there are too few women in political office. In comparison, 8 in 10 Democrats think so, according to the
Pew Research Center.
The New Congress Has A Record Number Of Women — But Very Few Republican Women