Women in power

The number of women in the legasilature in the United States is astoundingly low. The narrator of Miss Representation gave a statistic I found very interesting. She said that only 17% of Congress is women. This movie was made back in 2011. Since then the percentage of women in Congress has grown to 18.5%. Still despite the marginal growth men far out weigh women in the political realm.

So after hearing this I went home and looked up the number of women in the California legislature. I was surprised to find that 11 of the 40 representatives in the Senate were women and that 21 of the 80 representatives in the Assembly were women. Now with some simple math, (ugh math! I know just bear with me.) we can calculate that 31 of the 120 California legislators are women. That equals 25.8% of the representatives in Californias legislature are women. Alright not bad California thats more than Congress but still it isn't equal. In a nation of democracy where our main doctrine is equality for all, this doesn't add up. In a perfect world, which I know this isn't, the number of represnetatives would be split 50% men and 50% women. But it isn't nor is it even close to that number. Instead it is way lower than that equality.


After looking at all the legislators nationwide women make up just 24.2%. That is less then even a fourth of all legislators. Women are out numbered completelty throughout our country. So instead of getting laws made by the people for the people we get laws made by the men for the people. Not saying that all men are defincent but they lack the imoportant view of the women that should be present when making laws.

The United States is ranked 98 in the world for the percentage of women in the legislature. This is lower than in 1998 when the Unites Sates was ranked 59. This is not a good example to be setting if the United States wants to be setting an example as the leading world power. I think it is a problem more of the people. We have been told for so long that women can't be as good as men in politics. We think that a political career is a mans job. We should follow more of the mindset in Rwanda, who is the leading country for the percentage of women in parliament. Rwanda's parliament is 51.2% women.

As a young girl if I was asked if i wanted to be a member of the legislature I would say no. I would much rather prefer to be a doctor. Before I saw this movie, my reasoning was I'm not good at writing speechs and speaking in public really isn't my calling. But afterward, I think it is more because i haven't seen a large number of women at the capital. My mom is a lobbyist so throughout my childhood i have found myself at the capital more times than I can count and I have met many people at events. If you can guess the majority of the people my mom would introduce me too would be men. There was the occassional women but I didn't meet them in the numbers that i met the men of the capitol.

This inequality in the politcal realm needs to be resolved. Women need to believe that they are just as powerful as men.