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More Women Are Winning U.S. Elections. It’s Not The Only Way To Build Political Power

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Record numbers of women serve in congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative offices as a result of the 2022 election. But even when women win public office, equitable power—with men and among women—is not assured.

There is robust evidence that women officeholders disrupt institutional rules and culture as well as alter policy agendas and outcomes. That’s power. But charting the gender disparities among elected officeholders is just a first—albeit important—step in efforts to achieve gender parity in U.S. politics. Creating more equitable political institutions and outcomes requires rethinking political power—and efforts to re-allocate it—in more expansive and complex ways. Important in this work are more explicit discussions of which women are represented and where, which women have more or less political power, and to what end that political representation and power leads.

Women activists and voters harness their power for political change in ways that do not require candidacy and have been foundational to change throughout U.S. history. Women voters have outnumbered and outvoted men for over 40 years and, in 2022, Democratic women voters and advocates were pivotal in ballot outcomes to preserve reproductive rights. Women activists, specifically women of color, led efforts to preserve voting rights and uphold democracy nationwide, building on a rich history of power-building at the community level. But this type of power is not reflected in reports on the percentage of women officeholders.

Women also accumulate and exercise political power in unelected roles within formal political institutions. High-level staff—on campaigns, in legislatures, and to top executive officeholders—are especially powerful but often invisible by design; in their public deference to the principals they serve the private influence of key staffers is often overlooked. Research I conducted with women congressional staffers, for example, demonstrates the ways they can shape policy agendas and debates based on their own diverse lived experiences. And opportunities remain for more women to take on these roles, especially at the highest levels. Just last week, President Joe Biden named a new White House Chief of Staff, arguably one of the most powerful positions in the Executive Branch, but one that has never been held by a woman.

Political power is also held and exercised by other unelected players, including but not limited to lobbyists, donors, union leaders, business leaders, and political appointees. As Dr. Kira Sanbonmatsu notes in her research on gender differences in political giving, women’s power as donors in the current political environment—one in which money matters—is not fully realized. And the representation of women as labor and business leaders directly translates into power and influence in the political sphere. Finally, political appointees are often among those doing the business of governing with less public recognition. Just recently, the four congresswomen who will lead House and Senate appropriations committees have rightfully received much attention for their ascendance to such powerful political roles. But Shalanda Young, the current Director of the Office of Management and Budget, is a crucial player—as well as the only woman of color—on this five-woman team that is now responsible for the federal budget.

Recognizing these various sites for unelected influence should inform interventions to expand women’s political power, seeking opportunities to encourage women not only to run for office but also to access and exercise political power in ways that do not require election.

Even those women that do win elected offices are not guaranteed equal levels of influence to their peers. Political power varies by level and type of office. It is also inequitably distributed among hierarchies within political bodies, including those determined by partisan control. And, across these sites, understanding which women have power and how they utilize it to shape political processes and outcomes requires being attentive to party and racial/ethnic differences in representation and power distribution.

Finally, numbers alone are inadequate to fully disrupt the gendered and racialized norms of political institutions. Soon after a record number of women ran for and won congressional office in 2018, Democratic Representative Ayanna Pressley noted on the House floor how “patriarchy [is] very much at home in the halls of this powerful institution.” That patriarchal culture has direct effects on who holds power and how its wielded, as well as if and how they are held accountable, as recent investigations into state legislatures’ hostile environments toward women—both elected and unelected—have made clear. Norms, rules, and structures that privilege white men can also damage retention among women officeholders or discourage women from seeking this type of political power at all.

Our understanding of the political power women have, how they use it, and the potential for growth is constrained when we narrow the lens to counts of elected officeholders alone. Widening the lens for both measurement and intervention beyond elective office, as well as interrogating within-group differences in power distribution and its policy results, is essential to a more comprehensive approach to building women’s political power.

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