The Bridge
The U.S is ranked 89th in the world for the amount of women in government. Women are vastly underrepresented in the government, holding less than 20% of positions in government. Voters are partly to blame, they don’t vote in many women because of outdated stereotypes. Women raise less money while campaigning than men, because their presence on government is not yet normalized.
Women didn’t gain the right to vote until quite recently in the United States. At the Seneca falls convention (1848) many abolitionists, mostly women but also some men, gathered to talk about women’s rights. They said that if all men and women are created equal than women should get the right to vote. Were held back because lawmakers believed that the 15th amendment would endanger black enfranchisement by giving the right to the unpopular minority that is women. Later down the line they changed their approach of arguing that they were entitled because “all men and women are created equal” to “because they are different than men.” Women finally gained the right to vote in 1920, ending their voyage for equal voting rights.
The number of women in office makes a difference on the terms of the laws that are passed. Women want to share their power more than men do. Women are successful at passing bills, except when it comes to issues mainly affecting women. More women in the seats also correlates to less military spending and force when dealing with foreign countries. The “motherly instinct” women have can make quite the difference in the bills that are passed in government. Most lawmakers are very wealthy men who only think of how to keep themselves in that high tax bracket. Bringing in more women can make them stop and consider how the bills passed will affect not only them, but everyone else in the country who aren’t as privileged as them.
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