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Why America’s most diverse Congress isn’t much to celebrate [1]
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Date: 2023-01
On 3 January, the new US Congress convened in Washington, DC. This 118th Congress is being touted in the press as the most diverse American Congress ever – a point that is true on the surface, but one that ignores context, as Americans so often do when assessing our own institutions and achievements.
Uplifting political ‘firsts’ after an election is a well-worn ritual of American civil religion, and an innocuous enough one. But taking a step back to widen our analytical frame is still important. For example, while there are more women in the 118th Congress than in any previous US Congress, when it comes to gender parity in various countries’ representative institutions, the roughly 28% proportion of women across both congressional houses ties the US with Lithuania at number 73, according to the most recent data available on global parliaments.
Even if women now have higher representation than in any previous Congress, the relative lack of female representation by global standards is a salient fact to acknowledge, along with the fact that, according to Laurel Elder, professor of political science at Hartwick College, NY, achieving gender parity in Congress will take 118 more years if women’s gains continue at the current rate.
Elder explains the significance of women’s representation as follows: “This issue is important because how many women there are in the room when legislative decisions are made has significant consequences for the policies that governments enact. Female legislators are more likely than men to introduce, speak about and work to pass policies that disproportionately affect women and girls, such as paid family leave, pay equity and gender-based violence.”
Elder (who is the author of a book on the subject) recognises that the problem with diversity lies largely on the Republican side of the aisle. There are 107 Democratic women in the 118th Congress, compared to 42 Republican women. However, her suggestion that the gender gap can be resolved by getting “more women… to run, especially on Republican tickets” strikes me as tone-deaf, at best, given that the Republican Party is responsible for the recent overturning of abortion rights in the US.
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She acknowledges that the party’s “increasing conservatism has made it harder for women running as Republicans to win elections, as it has not made encouraging more women to run for office a priority”.
I find myself scratching my head at her idea that there would be anything to celebrate about women being elected to office in a party that has become fundamentally hostile to women’s interests, and shows no signs of changing that any time soon. In fact, there’s little likelihood of the GOP coalition diversifying in any substantive way when its evident raison d’être is upholding the privilege of those who are wealthy, white, male and Christian.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/chrissy-stroop-us-118th-congress-women-gender-diversity/
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