Kamala Harris is at the top of a big party running for president. Some people have celebrated her candidacywithin the hope that this is able to encourage voters enough to elect the primary woman president.
But the glass ceiling that prevented Hillary Clinton from running for president in 2016 stays stable at other political levels across the country.
My Research with Diana Da In Lee, Yamil Velez And Chris Warshaw shows that girls are still underrepresented amongst local officials in just about all political offices in cities and counties.
Like many other qualities of public officials, comparable to Profession or Racethe gender of elected officials influences the way in which they do politics. Research has shown that girls and particularly Working class womenelected to state and federal offices in countries around the globe make different spending decisions. More women in elected office may very well be especially significant on the local level, since that's where a lot of those state or federal spending decisions are literally made intimately.
Congress is notorious for having few women in office, but until now, researchers and the general public knew little or no about how women and diverse ethnic groups are represented outside of the federal government.
We Data collected from city, county, and college district elections over the past three many years in all cities with at the very least 50,000 residents and all counties with at the very least 75,000 residents in 2020. Using this data, we calculated the proportion of winning candidates who were men and women, respectively.
Our published research shows that the proportion of girls amongst elected officials in district and city administrations is lower than their proportion within the population.
The gap is especially large between the proportion of girls within the county population and the proportion of girls in county office. While women make up just over half of the county population, they make up just over 1 / 4 of the representatives who serve on county councils or county commissions. Women are even less common in county administration, sheriffs, and district attorneys. The office of sheriff is especially male-dominated, with women holding lower than 5% of those positions.
The situation is somewhat higher when it comes to female representation in city government offices. Women are usually not well represented within the mayoral office – only 24% of mayors are women – and just over a 3rd of elected city councillors are women. The relatively smaller gender gap amongst elected officials in city government is an improvement over the counties, but gender parity is way from achieved.
School boards are the one exception. In the varsity boards we studied, women are barely overrepresented in comparison with men. This could also be because school boards are what political scientists like us call “Stereotype congruent” Offices for ladies who Voters see the country as more competent in areas comparable to education and health.
People learn early in life through a process that researchers call “gender-specific political socialization” to query the place of girls in politics. Because of this, women show less interest in politics or are less prone to run for office, and this lack of political ambition is clear early in childhood. Other research shows that in maturity Gender-specific expectations of girls to have a successful profession alongside motherhood may further limit their interest in running for office. Our research shows the results of those differences in ambition between men and ladies in politics: women are underrepresented in just about all local political offices, except school boards.
As Kamala Harris runs against Donald Trump within the presidential election this fall, many experts and voters Celebrating the representation of girls – and particularly women of color – in politics. But regardless of the final result in November, the gender gap between city and county residents and their local elected representatives shall be large. As a result, vital policies implemented by local governments may not fully reflect the desires of the population.
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