Woman in Politics: America vs Europe
Woman’s rights has been a topic of interesting and issue for thousands of years. From 1848 when the first women’s rights convention in the U.S. took place, to now where there are 104 female members of Congress, including 21 women among 100 senators and 83 of 435 representatives, the United States as come along way. America has always had an unhealthy relationship with minority groups, whether it be people of color or women, the fight for equal rights has been long and hard.
Which makes the fact that we had a woman, Hillary Clinton, even run for president, an extreme step forward in the fight for gender equality. But how is America doing in comparison to other countries across the world? Sadly, we as a nation are still behind most nations. According to Vox, the United States’ 19.4 percent is almost 4 percent below the world average of 23.3 percent. This is not surprising as women weren’t even allowed to vote in elections in till June 4th, 1919.
Also according to Vox, in Spain, each sex is guaranteed a minimum of 40 percent of a party’s ballot nominations. This helps the country close the gender gap in political parties by requiring an equal amount of women and men to be in any party ballot. This is not something the United States does, and could be something that the country could work on to help more women be represented in our country’s political parties. Germany’s parliament now contains 37 percent women, just from political parties policy of including men and women. There are many countries that are also behind even America in inclusion of both genders in their political parties, but America being one of the super powers of the world should be setting more of an example of how to act, instead of being behind everyone else.
There is great things happening in 2019 involving women in politics in America. Nevada became the first state to have women hold a majority of state legislative seats (32 of 63, or 50.8%), which is amazing. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are the first two women to be Muslim and be elected to Congress. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (or AOC as she is often called) is turning out to be of the brightest and strongest driving forces for women in the Democratic party. She is the youngest woman ever to serve in the United States Congress. All of these amazing milestones are being hit in America because of a passionate group of people (women) who are choosing to no longer be torn down by their own nations politics.
The United States has a lot to learn from other countries around the world, and not just in gender equality. As statistics have shown the nation is headed in the right direction for gender equality in politics, and it is looking to only go up from here. The nation has started to look at women not as their gender stereotype, but finally as most of the population on Earth.
