FiveThirtyEight has up an interesting article about the proportion of Republicans in the U.S. Congress who are women, as well as comparisons to conservative parties in several other countries. The U.S. data (note that, contrary to the usual color-coding, in these tables red = left and blue = right, and an * indicates it is the party in power):
Now, one obvious explanation for this data would be that there aren’t that many women in the Republican party compared to the Democratic party, so there are accordingly fewer women in Congress (anyone have data on the gender breakdown by party, as opposed to voting in particular elections?). Or maybe they just can’t get elected. Another would be that parties on the right often encourage gender roles that are more “traditional,” with the idea that public life (particularly politics) is more appropriate for men, while women focus more on the private sphere of home life and extensions of it (say, education).
There may very well be some truth there, but that’s not the whole story. For one thing, the U.S. lags behind many other nations in terms of the percent of female legislators (a pattern that holds in the U.S. whether Republicans or Democrats control Congress, though the % changes somewhat):
The FiveThirtyEight post also compares parties in Sweden, Japan, Germany, and the U.S. in terms of the representation of women in left- and right-leaning parties, based on data for the parties holding seats in the legislative bodies in each country. In Sweden a center/right coalition is currently in power, while in Germany a left-leaning and right-leaning party have formed a coalition. A party on the left recently took power from a party on the left in Japan. A comparison of the four countries, broken down by political orientation:
Of course, parties on the right and left in each nation have different platforms, policy emphases, bases of support, and gender ideologies, so they aren’t directly comparable. But the “proportion” column above compares left and right parties within each country; it reflects the % of right party legislators that is female compared to the % in more left-leaning parties. That is, if the parties on the political right had the same % of female legislators as parties on the political left in that country, the proportion would be 100.0%. The lower the proportion, the lower the % of female legislators on the right compared to their representation on the left.
As we see, there are clear differences by political orientation in all countries, but there is an enormous range. The U.S. stands out with a particularly low proportion, indicating the largest gap between right and left parties.
Of course, the other story here is that both the U.S. and Japan stand out with extremely low percentages of legislators who are women in either party, with Germany doing better but still lagging compared to the proportion of women in the population. On the other hand, both left and right parties in Sweden seem to be capable of recruiting women who run for national office and win.
Comments 23
cathy — November 10, 2009
Since when have the dems been the left? The dems are the center and some of them are just the right (see the blue dogs for instance).
sarah — November 10, 2009
That is embarassingly low :/ I thought it would be slightly more equal.
Also, I totally agree with Cathy. Dems are definitely not leftist.
Doro — November 10, 2009
I think you should be careful when you equate left and liberal. In Germany, for example, they are very different things. And at the moment, the liberal party is in power while the left parties are both in the opposition. And as far as I know, the liberals are more on the conservative end of the party spectrum at the moment (it used to be different).
You should also note that, at least with regards to Germany, the liberals are counted as a conservative party in this comparison.
Edie — November 10, 2009
Conservative women in power will always, without fail, remind me of the woman in the Handmaid's Tale who used her political power to demand traditional roles for women, and then was forced into one herself.
MallMonkey — November 10, 2009
The U.S. data (note that, contrary to the usual color-coding, in these tables red = liberal/left and blue = conservative/right, and an * indicates it is the party in power):
Actually, in every country but the US, red is used by mostly left (e.g. socialist) parties... And the color of both the British and Canadian conservative parties? You guessed it: blue.
Even in the US the usage of blue for dems and red for republicans has only been widespread since 2000.
Maggie — November 11, 2009
Iraq and Pakistan, both of which have Muslim majorities, have more women legislators than the US, UK, France, or Canada.
Boy, it's a good thing the US keeps bombing Middle Eastern countries. We need to free the women from those universally terrible Muslim men! But Saudi Arabia's cool with the States, since they play nice, and we give them a slap on the wrist every once in a while to remind them who's boss...I guess their zero women legislators are already Free.
Rachel — November 11, 2009
It's worth noting that Rwanda, and perhaps a few other countries on the list, reserves some seats in its legislature exclusively for women.
Stephanie Z — November 11, 2009
According to the Pew Research Center, while women are more likely to be affiliated with the Democratic Party than Republican, the disparity isn't anything like that seen in the House and Senate.
http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=750
Jon — November 12, 2009
There are a number of factors that need to be analyzed to even attempt to explain some of these differences, and electoral method is one such factor that might play an important role.
As Rachel indicated above, Rwanda reserves some seats in the Chamber of Deputies for women. The Chamber of Deputies contains 53 seats that are elected directly based on proportional representation (PR) and 24 seats for women that are elected indirectly through provincial councils. Sweden and Argentina also uses PR for their elections, and Germany employs a mixed member proportional representation system for Bundestag elections.
The PR system, not without its own problems, allows for a wider representation of political parties in national legislative bodies (even with minimum thresholds). But I also wonder if the PR system allows for greater female representation within legislative bodies since parties can provide equal number of men and women on party lists. Sounds like a topic for additional research...
Dave — November 14, 2009
As I am probably a minority on this site (a conservative) let me share a few thoughts with you. First, I would love to see more women and minorities representing my party. We are the party of Lincoln after all. And contrary to some thoughts passed on here, strong and intelligent women are preferred. But we also welcome women who prioritize raising their family without guilt or shame, thats a choice too. That being said, perhaps the left in this country should stop targeting the women and minorities who are conservative. Palin rises and is savaged, Clarence Thomas is nominated and is attacked, several conservative hispanics have been chased out of Washington for being too dumb. Palin is gone, now they attack Bachman. It goes on and on. Please tell the DNC to stop targeting our minorities if you would like to see more of them in the Republican party. But I think liberals actually like it that way.
Comparison of Women Legislators by Party and Country « Feminist Looking Glass — November 17, 2009
[...] of Women Legislators by Party and Country Posted on November 17, 2009 by Mike Thanks to Sociological Images for pointing out statistics on the percentage of women in the U.S. Senate and House of [...]
AmandaLP — November 17, 2009
As Rachel pointed out above, Rwanda has election quotas. However, *every* country listed above the US (in the list) has election quotas.
http://www.quotaproject.org/country.cfm
The analysis on the political leanings of the women in power are interesting, though, and are not quite explained within the quota system.