Hillary Clinton and Mary Thomas have little in common, except for this: They both hope to add to the meager ranks of America’s female elected officials come January.
You know about Clinton, but probably not Thomas – a conservative Republican, opponent of abortion and Obamacare, former general counsel of Florida’s Department of Elder Affairs. She’s running in Florida’s 2nd District to become the first Indian-American woman in Congress. It’s no easy task.
“There is still a good ol’ boys network that is in place,” she says, though she insists that “A lot of people see the value in having different types of people in Washington.”
Even as Clinton attempts to shatter what she has called “the highest, hardest glass ceiling,” other women like Thomas are testing other, lower ceilings. There are many: Women in the U.S. remain significantly underrepresented at all levels of elected office.
“Historically, we have centuries of catching up to do,” says Missy Shorey, executive director of the conservative-leaning Maggie’s List, one of a number of groups supporting female candidates.
Though women are more than half of the American population, they now account for just a fifth of all U.S. representatives and senators, and one in four state lawmakers. They serve as governors of only six states and are mayors in roughly 19 percent of the nation’s largest cities.
There has been progress; as recently as 1978, there were no women U.S. senators, and now there are 20. Still, there has been little headway since a surge of women won office in the 1980s and early 1990s. Sixteen states have fewer women serving in legislatures than in 2005, and five others have shown no improvement, according to an analysis by the Associated Press of data collected by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
It is another aspect of the gender divide – one of the most glaring in our society.
Women still earn 79 cents for every dollar men take home; men outnumber women in higher paying occupations, though even there they are often paid less.