Two of the three Republicans who crossed the aisle to confirm the president’s Supreme Court pick, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, are women. Mitt Romney of Utah joined Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine this week to vote in favor of Jackson’s nomination. But it was the women’s ability to put principles before politics that led the way.
Collins and Murkowski have watched male senators questioning Jackson. They have seen their colleagues’ constant interruptions. And they have seen Jackson stand up to such hectoring with fortitude. As women in public office, I can imagine they saw a familiar pattern and decided to take a stand. It’s one that serves American progress and stands up for justice.
Jackson’s confirmation demonstrates why we need more women in positions of top leadership. In elected office, only 27 percent of members of Congress are women. Women serve as governors in only nine states and only 30 percent of state legislators are women. Overall, about one-third of elected leaders are women. Research shows women across the political spectrum take a different approach to political leadership, leading to greater success passing legislation. They also support policies that are favorable to gender equity.
There are a lot of major issues where we need fresh imagination and approaches to get unstuck. That goes for both sides of the aisle. At a time when political division has never been more pronounced, we’re going to need more women to fix it. Yet, if we’re even going to get to gender parity in elected office, we still have a long way to go.
It is important to try to see gender’s role in shaping the future of American democracy. Not all women make great legislators, of course. And not all women face the same barriers to leadership. And politics is about more than gender. But America as a whole has been blind to its internal biases on gender and its intersection with race for far too long. As we start to deconstruct what gender means for everyone, more diversity at the top will help.
In seeing Jackson’s nomination, it’s clear that Black women are often held to a higher standard than white men. But seeing a Black woman in Jackson’s position changes what young women see as possible. They will have more confidence now that the country’s highest offices are open to them. It will boost their engagement in American civic life.
Still, the barriers for women and girls seeking political leadership roles are real not only at the federal and state level. They go all the way down to the nation’s school boards. We need to ask women, research shows, eight times, before they’ll run for office. It is too often not a question of whether they want to run, but rather if they can. Meanwhile men get asked more often and need less encouragement. Don’t even get me started on parental leave policies or the disparate impact of student debt on women, particularly women of color.
I have a colleague working full-time who also serves in elected office on a city council. When she rotated into office as the mayor of her town, there were no changing tables for infants in her city hall.It is no wonder that women legislators across the political aisle favor policies that promote gender equity like daycare programs.
Women in government, including electing more women into office, is not a “women’s issue.” It is a matter of representation and justice that sustains our democracy.
Sara Guillermo is CEO of IGNITE, America’s largest and most diverse organization for young women’s political leadership.