Good catch by the The Phoenix’ political reporter, David Bernstein: it’s not so much that last week’s election was a good one for women. Sure, to take one example, it’s noteworthy that despite the retirements of longtime Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (TX) and Olympia Snowe (ME) female representation in the next Senate will rise from 17 to 20—due to the elections of Republican Deb Fischer (NE) and Democrats Tammy Baldwin (WI), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Mazie Hirono (HI) and Elizabeth Warren (MA).
What’s more noteworthy is that the number of female Republican senators will actually drop, as both Hutchinson and Snowe are Republicans.
Bernstein crunches the numbers: “Going into this election, Republicans had 24 women in the US House, out of 242 members; and 5 in the US Senate, out of 47.
They will enter the next session with 21 women out of ~235 (20 if McSally ends up losing AZ-2); and 4 in the US Senate, out of 45.
Republicans nominated no women for the 11 gubernatorial races held this week. To the best of my knowledge Kelly Schmidt of North Dakota, who was re-elected as state treasurer, was the only Republican woman in the country to win a major statewide executive office Tuesday.”
All of this illustrates a broader truth about today’s Republican Party: that it is “a massive, major, influential societal institution whose leadership not only remains 90 percent male but is actually moving toward ever-greater gender disparity.”
It’s not like the Democratic Party is a shining beacon of gender equity (16 women in a caucus of 55 senators is nothing to brag about), but
- at least it’s moving in the right direction, and
- having a critical mass of female colleagues is one way to men—at a minimum—can learn not to talk about “legitimate rape”.
Which, you know, doesn’t exactly seem to be winning political rhetoric with a post-19th amendment electorate.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/
