Each chapter of this report draws from research findings to offer prescriptions for making progress in efforts to increase women’s political power. Those prescriptions are aggregated below.
Intentionality is a recurring theme in this research and a necessary element of the work to increase women’s political power. For our interview subjects, intentionality includes: targeted recruitment and training of women for politically powerful roles, with particular expansion to judicial positions and unelected roles that are less often sites for targeted recruitment and professional development, as well as attentiveness to sites where power sits primarily with men and adopting strategies to address that power imbalance. For those already in positions of authority and influence, simply calling out the imbalance of power and asking those who can remedy it for specific plans of action can go a long way to setting new expectations and creating opportunities for increasing women’s political power.
Multiple interview subjects were quick to warn against promoting women’s political success on the basis of gender alone. They emphasized the importance of increasing the political representation and power of women with whom they shared values and, relatedly, concrete policy positions and priorities, which vary by party and ideology. They warned that increasing representation of certain groups of women does not ensure more power for all women; race/ethnicity, class, age, and professional background are just some axes of diversity that complicate the relationship between numbers and outcomes for women in politics. Beyond differences in identity, ideology, and values, political actors also pointed to character-based criteria for ensuring that women’s political representation can substantively enhance women’s political power. They called for women who are both willing and capable to challenge existing power systems to embrace and execute their own power, women who – according to multiple interview subjects – are “able to weather the storm,” “willing to go out on a limb,” “aren’t going to take shit off anybody,” and “turn over some tables.”
As described in chapter three, much of the existing support infrastructure for women in politics is focused on training women to seek and win elective office. But this only scratches the surface of women’s power potential. Raising awareness and understanding with women of their capacity to access and exercise power in myriad political roles is necessary in a more comprehensive effort to increase women’s political power. Additionally, interview subjects, including elected women, emphasized the need to expand training to better prepare women for how to use power effectively – in elected or unelected roles – within political institutions that remain male and white dominated. And this type of education and information should be available for women once they are in politically powerful roles, recognizing that the landscapes on which power is allocated and exercised are always changing. Multiple interview subjects described this type of support as “setting women up for success” and not assuming that empowerment work ends with women earning a specific title.
Power in any role is an illusion if keeping that position requires ceding autonomy. But political institutions are replete with complexity and demands for compromise in moving from goals to outcomes. Throughout this process, those most vulnerable to ceding autonomy and authenticity are those whose preservation of power is dependent on those who prioritize loyalty over inclusion. Removing that dependence includes establishing alternative sites for resources – money, votes, and vocal and coordinated support – that women leaders can rely on when they stand up against the status quo. Creating more inclusive, accessible, and robust support infrastructures alternative to those who seek to constrain political women’s autonomy is part of the larger project of increasing women’s political power within and across states (see chapter three). These supports might also address the exhaustion that comes with fighting for equal access to the levers of power expected to come with holding elective office.
This report includes myriad indicators of power and an expanded list of sites where political power lies, each of which can be used to guide future research and interventions that move beyond using the percentage of women in office as a sole measure of women’s political power.
Political actors we interviewed across states identified key sites for political power that should guide this work:
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- Appointed positions on public boards and commissions at local and statewide levels
- Individuals in both appointed and high-level staff positions at state agencies and/or regulatory authorities
- Legislative staff
- Campaign and party staff and operatives
- Political consultants
- Registered lobbyists
- Individual donors
- Major industries, including their political action committees
- Tribal governments and tribal community and industry
- Voters
- Grassroots advocates/activists
- Unions
- Civic institutions, including schools, churches, think tanks, non-profit organizations, and community foundations
- Political parties, including party organizations, party campaign committees, and elected party leaders
- Critical actors who have significant, and often quite individualized, power in shaping political climates and outcomes. These actors almost always come from one or more of the groups listed above, especially elected officials (both current and former), party leaders, and donors.
It is difficult to motivate action to address women’s political underrepresentation without first articulating the need for intervention and acquiring buy-in from political influencers – party and organizational leaders, political professionals, and even donors and voters – in a state’s political ecosystem. Framing gender disparities in political representation and power as democratic problem, one rooted in the value proposition that gender and racial/ethnic diversity among those in political power is not only fair but also brings a rich set of perspectives to politics and overall better outcomes for the broadest range of constituencies, offers a more durable and sustainable motivation to increase women’s political representation and power in both elected and unelected roles. Emphasizing the electoral value of increasing gender and racial diversity is also a viable strategy toward motivating political leaders to act, but this approach is more at risk of being time-specific, benefiting a smaller subset of women, and being less concerned about increasing women’s political power and more concerned with consolidating the power of a political party.
Due to differences in problem definition between Republicans and Democrats, nonpartisan or bipartisan efforts to increase women’s political power are, at least, under-utilized by or, at most, distrusted by Republicans. Specifically, Republicans are less likely than Democrats to support identity-based interventions, necessitating consideration of alternative strategies for creating political conditions in which women can thrive. Republican-targeted strategies for increasing women’s political power must approach this work differently and with attentiveness to cultural and motivational differences. Accommodating these differences could also help in appeals to Democrats who are averse to prioritizing identity in strategies for political success.
When disparities in political representation are attributed to the choices of the underrepresented group (i.e. women do not want to run for or serve in positions of political leadership), political influencers – including those we interviewed for this project – are less likely to take any responsibility for increasing the gender and racial/ethnic diversity of candidates or officeholders. To counter these claims and shift responsibility for increasing diversity to those with influence on candidate emergence and success, our interview subjects described their own efforts to build benches of women and racially/ethnically diverse candidates through outreach and education. Then, when political leaders express support for increasing diverse candidates if they could find them, those same insiders have a ready response to hold the leaders accountable to their promise of support.
Interview subjects described their own commitments to increasing gender and racial/ethnic diversity of political leaders, noting how their personal experiences and value commitments shape their priorities as political professionals. Specifically, women and people of color in positions of political authority – including party leaders, chamber leaders, and leading practitioners – outlined actions they have taken to disrupt established political processes in ways that would increase the political representation and power of women and racially/ethnically diverse communities. As individuals most aware of, and subject to, prevailing axes of marginalization, these leaders are apt to understand and problematize disparities in political representation and invest in targeted solutions to address them.
The history of increasing women’s political representation in the U.S. has included strategic efforts to create support systems and strategic interventions alternative to political parties and the political establishment. By creating competition for these entities and threatening their control of candidate pipelines and electoral outcomes, these alternative entities pressure political insiders to better address gender gaps in who they recruit and support. In our states of study, multiple organizational leaders described how their own targeted efforts to recruit and train successful women candidates forced party leaders to pay greater attention to remedying gender disparities in political representation. They demonstrate the value of pressuring political leaders and party organizations from both the inside and the outside to increase women’s political representation and power.
In characterizing existing support infrastructures for women in politics as limited in capacity and scope, political actors across states offered ample evidence for the need to expand this infrastructure (or build an infrastructure where it does not exist) in multiple ways. Beyond expanding the overall magnitude of supports to serve more women, greater support is necessary for women political practitioners (staff, consultants, lobbyists), elected women, and women candidates and officeholders in local and judicial offices. Formal programs and resources to support women and politics must also be accessible and responsive to working-class women and women outside of metro areas, necessitating attentiveness to financial costs, schedules, program content, and disparities in awareness or information across groups of women. Women political leaders emphasized the value of creating safe spaces and durable networks – whether formal or informal – of women navigating the same political ecosystems. These relationships address the more holistic needs of political women and go beyond the ‘nuts and bolts’ information provided through one-time trainings. A holistic approach to building support infrastructures for women also includes addressing mental health, personal barriers to participation (see chapters four and five), and personal safety.
Building more robust support infrastructures for women in politics requires recognition that women are not monolithic in their experiences, needs, and prioritization of gender identity. The persistent racialization of U.S. politics creates distinct conditions for political actors at diverse intersections of race and gender. Additionally, historically-justified mistrust of white women from women of color is exacerbated within systems where white women maintain power and privilege. This includes the women’s political organization space, where white women are the bulk of both organizational leaders and funders and where few programs exist at the state level that are focused specifically on Asian, Black, Latina, MENA, or Native women. Investing in resources, including programs and organizations that serve women at specific intersections of race and gender, is a start to creating a more attentive and competent support infrastructure for all women in politics. Fostering racial/ethnic inclusion in existing women’s political organizations must go beyond increasing diversity of program participants or contributors. It must extend to re-allocating power over organizational decision-making, planning, and resource distribution in ways that disrupt white dominance while setting women in power up for success. Within our case states, some of this work has already begun. But the project of power disruption and trust-building between communities of women within state political ecosystems will require long-term commitments and continued dialogue to ensure that prescribed interventions are informed by insiders with diverse experiences and perspectives.
Interview subjects across states repeatedly referenced both the need for and hurdles to a more diverse class of political professionals, especially campaign staff and political consultants. Building support infrastructure for unelected professionals is part of this work. But increasing the representation and power of women and individuals from historically-marginalized racial/ethnic groups in campaigns also requires addressing barriers to access such as low compensation (see chapter four), work/life incompatibility (see chapter four), and gender and racial biases in hiring and promotion. Persistent sexism and racism within campaign environments can also act as a deterrent to both recruitment and retention (see chapter five), demonstrating the importance of disrupting established institutional norms and culture to attracting and retaining diverse talent. Targeted programs within our case states to recruit and train political professionals from underrepresented communities – such as the BLUE Institute and the New Georgia Project’s cultivation of political organizers – offer models for future and expanded efforts to create a class of campaign professionals that can best serve the full range of diversity among both candidates and voters, and who themselves shift the balance in who holds political power.
Addressing existing disparities in support infrastructures for women requires dialogue with diverse communities of women, especially those who feel underserved by the existing supports that target women and/or for whom gender-targeted support is not a priority. And promoting women’s political power across these communities might mean strengthening support infrastructure that is not targeted exclusively to women in ways that ensure women have equal access to resources. For example, recognition of the ideological aversion to gender-specific assistance among Republicans, as noted in chapter two, should inform how efforts to support Republican women in politics are developed, framed, and executed. Beyond creating women-specific programs or organizations, advocates might consider how best to incentivize Republican-serving programs and organizations to be attentive to gender disparities in access, programming, and outcomes. A similar approach might be applied to other communities of women that do not prioritize building political support infrastructures that serve women specifically, instead seeing greater need for resources that support power-building within historically-marginalized racial/ethnic and/or class communities. Perspectives and priorities from women in these communities must be integrated into strategic planning and resource development, including more vigorous consideration of how uplifting and promoting inclusion among non-gender-specific resources can benefit women in politics. Notably, the vast amount of resources in state political ecosystems are invested outside of gender-targeted work, only further affirming the importance of advocating that those who control those resources are attentive to the needs of women within diverse communities.
Expanding the magnitude and capacity of support infrastructures for women in politics requires financial support. Most organizations committed to increasing women’s political participation are financially under-resourced and, thus, under-staffed, particularly at the state level. They rely heavily on volunteers, including women political leaders they are also trying to serve, and are reluctant to expand without the promise of sustained and reliable investment. Finally, in an environment of sparse resources, women’s political organizations may be reluctant to build coalitions and partnerships that create greater efficiency due to concerns about organizational self-sufficiency.
Organization leaders and advocates for increasing women’s political power described the benefits of coordinating efforts with like-minded groups and individuals. These include expanding capacity and efficiency, increasing reach, and maximizing available resources. Additionally, coalition-building with other, all-gender organizations committed to fostering political engagement and power creates opportunities for tapping into more diverse communities and resources. Expanding the pool of organizations and individuals engaged in work to increase women’s political power can also allow for more attentiveness to cultural competency, ideological differences, and supports serving non-candidates.
Existing efforts to provide targeted campaign funds to women through dedicated political action committees can be expanded in reach, level of investment, timing of investment (to allow for support at the earliest stages of campaigns), and attentiveness to systemic biases (e.g. perceptions of electability, smaller donations) that affect women of color, working-class women, and young women. But, as noted in chapter three, focusing solely on targeted women’s PACs is insufficient to address the diverse financial challenges that women confront from candidate emergence to officeholding. Addressing the personal and professional financial costs of campaigning and officeholding requires promoting efforts to: expand permissions to use campaign funds to cover personal costs, as has been evident in state rule changes to allow campaign funds to be used for childcare and federal-level advocacy to allow campaign fund coverage of rent and lost income while campaigning; increase compensation for officeholding; and/or identify and apply best practices for employers to promote compatibility of public service with non-elective employment (e.g. protected and/or paid leaves, reduced/flexible work hours). Limiting the role of money in campaigns through significant campaign finance reform might also be particularly beneficial to women, though its impact would be much more widespread and enactment difficult based on judicial precedent. Likewise, public financing for campaigns can create opportunity but not necessarily equity unless all candidates are required to opt in. Assuming campaign costs remain high, women candidates would benefit from access to expanded pools of donors, including women donors who are especially likely to give to women candidates.
Compensation for full-time campaign and legislative staff varies widely across campaigns and institutions, with much discretion given to the political principal (candidate or officeholder). In many cases, time demands and workload are not commensurate with compensation, hampering both recruitment and retention. And the opportunity costs of taking on this work – whereby staffers could earn more outside of these roles – are especially influential to those individuals without access to wealth and/or alternative income. Increased efforts to unionize campaigns and legislative staff, as well as to promote standardized compensation and benefits across campaign and legislative operations, including efforts to better address concentrated workloads and irregular hours, offer an opportunity to create more accessible and attractive conditions for all potential staff, including women.
Research and strategic planning to create “gender-sensitive parliaments” have burgeoned in the past 15 years, from the ongoing global initiative of the Inter-Parliamentary Union to more country-specific efforts like those in the United Kingdom and Australia. Suggested reforms encompass both structural and cultural interventions, as well as attentiveness not only to women-friendly but also diversity-sensitive efforts. Moreover, these blueprints grapple with the unique dynamics of elected bodies that make certain flexible labor practices – such as leave, work share, or even remote work – more difficult. While not directly applicable to U.S. institutions, this work offers avenues for further exploration and application in the U.S. context. In the United States, recent efforts by the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress and the Congressional Reform Task Force provide additional prescriptions for increasing staff diversity and retention, creating more accessible pathways to congressional service, and addressing hurdles to service created by congressional operations. Specific concerns raised by our interview subjects about the lack of institution-provided childcare, lactation spaces, and leave policies might be addressed by existing reform suggestions to create friendlier environments for officeholders and staff alike.
Similar challenges, albeit distinct due to the nature and timeline of the work, exist on political campaigns. While less research has been done to identify both challenges and reform opportunities to create more gender-sensitive, inclusive, and family-friendly campaigns, the unionization efforts mentioned above – spearheaded by groups like the Campaign Workers Guild – offer one avenue toward addressing some of the barriers raised specifically by campaign practitioners.
Continued efforts are necessary to ensure that when structural opportunities to increase women’s political power are identified and created, there are political women ready, willing, and able to take advantage of them. This work is already being done, as outlined in chapter three, but can be expanded, improved, more coordinated, and better-resourced. It can also be more strategic, leveraging advanced knowledge of vacancies and retirements, recognition of demographic change, and formal processes for appointments (both to elective office and high-level government posts) to pair prospective women political leaders with opportunities best fit to their circumstances.
The success and impact of women political leaders represent opportunities for further progress in building women’s political power. Increasing awareness of women’s electoral success challenges electability biases that persist among political influencers such as party leaders and donors, as well as voters, with potential to motivate recruitment and early campaign support (see chapter two). Sharing evidence of women’s political influence and impact can also change individual-level calculations of political involvement among women, shaping perceptions of accessibility and importance of taking on political roles. Moreover, amplifying the benefits of women’s representation in both elected and unelected political roles can inspire greater support for and recruitment of women as candidates, officeholders, political practitioners, and activists. There is no monolithic or singular impact of women in positions of political power. Promoting the value of women’s political presence, voice, and influence should include attention to the distinct importance of increasing the diversity among women political leaders.
There is no singular prescription that will rid political institutions of racism or sexism. Still, our interviews with political leaders in five states offer insights into what has moved or might move the needle in a direction that creates political institutions with more equitable distributions of power and friendlier conditions to women and historically-marginalized groups. Building more robust support infrastructures for women within political institutions, as outlined in chapter three, can aid in this cultural change, especially if that includes efforts to ensure that political women who violate expectations and/or challenge the status quo instead of adapting to norms established by white men have the necessary backing – from donors, voters, and peers – to retain their power. Changing culture also requires changing who holds power, and increasing the representation of women in leadership roles – both among staff and officeholders – offers opportunities to disrupt prevailing norms and practices. The responsibility to combat institutional biases cannot only fall on women, however. Male allies, especially those already in positions of political power, must challenge inequities, call out aggressions, and punish inappropriate behavior that creates unsafe and unequal environments for women and people of color.
Social and political opportunities for building women’s political power can include catalyzing events, short or long-term shifts accessibility to and success within political spaces, and strategic interventions. Building robust pipelines of diverse women for political leadership roles is among the most important proactive efforts necessary to leverage these opportunities as they arise. Expanding efforts to build women’s political power beyond officeholding – as activists, voters, donors, and political professionals – can contribute to the pipeline of potential candidates and officeholders, while also creating additional opportunities for promoting sustainable growth in women’s political power that is neither time-bound nor electorally-dependent.