After decades of activism and lobbying, the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, finally granting women the right to vote. For women, the right to vote wasn’t just about the right to stand in a ballot box and fill in bubbles. For the first time in history, women were allowed to vote into office those whom they felt best represented their interests and opinions. The right to vote meant our inclusion in the political process. It legitimized our political opinions and added value to issues that women cared about. Or, at least, that’s what women hoped it would do.
While the passage of the 19th Amendment was probably one of the greatest moments in women’s history, it would be nice if getting rid of gender inequality was that easy. Unfortunately, simply granting women the right to vote did not mean that, all of the sudden, social inequalities and double standards based on gender magically disappeared overnight. Despite our political value and inclusion, even a hundred years later, the political system is still a patriarchy.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women make up 50.8 percent of the U.S. population, but our government doesn’t even come close to accurately representing this demographic. In the U.S. Congress, only 103 of the 535 seats are filled by women. 103 U.S. congresswomen is a record-breaking number and a tremendous achievement, but it’s still less than 20 percent. The statistics for state legislators are just as bad: only 41 of the 160 members of the Florida Congress are female.
Ultimately, because we live in a republic where we elect officials to make political decisions for us, the majority of people drafting laws and creating regulations on a federal and state level — even on women’s issues — are men. Men are the ones currently deciding whether consent education is important enough to include in public school education nationwide — a common sense bill that shouldn’t even be debated but still faces opposition. Men are the ones who establish state regulations on female reproductive rights, creating bills like the one proposed in Missouri that prohibits all abortions unless the mother has the father’s permission. Even in the Supreme Court, where men outnumber women six to three, men are the ones who judge cases like this summer’s Hobby Lobby case — cases that impact our law on a constitutional level — and determine that a corporation’s freedom of religion is more important than a woman’s right to her body and access to birth control.
Men are certainly the ones running our government, but it’s not necessarily because they are better at it. Social stigmas tell us that female politicians are too emotional, too soft, or, if not soft enough, too bossy to work for public office. There’s a ridiculous fear that because women have periods, a woman in power might impulsively do something dramatic like ordering a missile attack on a small, innocent country.
However, contrary to popular belief, female members of Congress are just as competent as their male counterparts, if not even more so. Women in Congress are much more likely to compromise and work across the aisle than men are. According to the New York Times, “The average female senator co-sponsored 171.08 bills with a member of the opposite party; for the average male senator, that figure was 129.87.” Considering that our Congress is less productive than ever before simply because both parties refuse to cooperate, we need more bipartisan leadership that is willing to work with the other side to find a solution. A study conducted by Bloomberg added that not only are female legislators more likely to work well with others, despite political differences, but also female legislators work harder and are generally more effective at producing bills that actually pass. According to the study, the average female introduced 96.31 bills since the 111th congressional term, 2.31 of which were enacted into law. The average congressman only introduced an average of 70.72 bills and only 1.57 of those passed.
While it’s great that women are crafting bills that get passed into laws, it’s important to note that in order for the bill to become law, it needs be voted on. As a result, women, a drastic minority, do not have a lot of power when it comes to which bills become laws. Ultimately, it’s the men who do all of the political decision-making.
The Women’s Suffrage Movement was probably the most significant success of the feminist movement. If the 19th Amendment was never ratified, we wouldn’t have congresswomen, women running for president, or women on the Supreme Court. It was the beginning to our political legitimacy. However, until there is fair representation in the state and federal government, female voices will continue to be overshadowed and the political system will remain unequal.
