December 23, 2020,
Studies in women’s political representation have shown that women bring to political office numerous benefits, including greater cooperation, women’s empowerment, and economic growth. Yet women remain severely underrepresented in political office in countries around the world. While democratic systems and institutions are a first step at ameliorating this problem, not all democracies are created equal. Structural considerations in democracies, like a nation’s electoral system, have an influence on who is being represented.
Women will make up 26% percent of the voting members of the newly elected U.S. Congress—the highest ever, but still a paltry share in light of the notable progress towards women’s rights during the 20th century. One reason for the continued gender gap in Congress may be the way we elect our representatives. Most democracies, but not the United States, abide by an electoral principle known as proportional representation, which is correlated with higher women’s political representation. Adopting it in the United States could facilitate progress here.
Proportional representation, PR for short, is an electoral system in which representatives are elected proportionally—based upon the percentage of votes each political party or its candidates receive in an election. In other words, if a political party received 50% percent of the vote in an election, its representatives would make up 50% of the representatives in the legislature.
PR electoral systems diverge from so-called “winner-take-all” systems, wherein every seat in the legislature is filled by the candidate who wins an election in a single-member voting district — a geographic area where one elected official represents the entire constituency. Single-winner districts are not incompatible with PR, but it’s not possible to achieve proportionality if all legislative seats are filled that way, as they are in the United States Congress. (More on PR and its forms.)
Growing empirical evidence suggests that proportional representation is positively correlated with women’s political participation. In 1996, to create a fairer electoral system, New Zealand replaced its electoral system, which had been much like ours, with a PR system. The country’s form of PR — called Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) — combines single-member districts and members elected to serve at large. It allows voters two votes: one for their local representative and one for the national party. The party vote determines the total allocation of seats among the parties. Today the country serves as a case study in the benefits of a fair electoral system, including women’s representation. In the years following New Zealand’s transition to PR, there was a sharp increase in women’s representation. According to New Zealand’s Ministry of Social Development, women’s representation “increased from... 21 percent in 1993, and then rose sharply to 29 percent in the first Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) election held in 1996.” This number has since grown, with women now making up 41 percent of New Zealand’s legislature.
One reason for this increase may be the result of women’s representation reaching a critical mass — the moment when “they grow from a few token individuals into a considerable minority of all legislators”.
Representation matters. Women play a unique role in bringing cooperation and collaboration into the legislative decision-making process. A report published by the WNY Women’s Foundation articulates, women are “more likely to emphasize achievement over ego, and more concerned with achieving policy outcomes rather than receiving publicity or credit.” Additionally, women’s involvement in the legislative process helps achieve greater active representation by enabling women to develop an agenda that seeks to remove systemic gender inequities. Active representation is especially important for women and people of color, as will be further addressed in an article exploring racial representation and PR.
Furthermore, a PR system would empower women voters and candidates by eliminating the partisan bias that taints our existing system. Only 13% of Republican members of Congress will be women in the new Congress—in stark contrast to the nearly 40% of Democrats who will be women. This is paralleled by a longstanding and growing gender gap among voters: in 2018, women favored Democratic candidates by a 19-point margin, whereas men favored Republicans by 4 points. Our existing electoral system overcounts Republican voters, who are disproportionately men and elect few women to office. It follows that reducing that bias would increase women’s representation.
By making structural changes to our electoral system, the U.S. will embolden more women to run for public office and increase their chance of being elected. The Democracy Decree, which would institute a style of PR similar to New Zealand’s, supports women’s political representation by making the structural changes necessary to help achieve parity over time.
By signing our petition, you can help us achieve this.