What women want

A place in the House, and the Senate, too

Women outnumber men in the U.S. by about two percentage points — somewhere in the range of 51% female to 49% male. Said another way, it’s a difference of a little over 3 million souls. Oh, the percentage fluctuates a tenth of a point here or there depending on your source material and the time frame in which the data was collected. But, it’s pretty much a given that there are more women than men in this country. It’s been that way for a long time.

Those statistics, however, are not mirrored when breaking down the number of men vs. women in state legislatures around the country. Lawmaking on the state level is still very much a man’s world.

According to a story last week in your newspaper, the legislative presence of females in the state legislatures in the U.S. is 31%. And that’s an all-time high.

“It’s still 20 points short of women’s portion of the population,” Janine Parry, professor of political science at the University of Arkansas, told the paper.

In Congress, the difference is more stark: 28% are women. It’s even more unbalanced in Arkansas’ General Assembly. Only 31 of the 135 members of the state Legislature are women. That’s less than 23%.

And don’t even ask us about the percentage of women serving as governors around the nation. Well, OK. We’ll tell. It’s 18%.

“No other major demographic group remains as grossly underrepresented as women,” Parry said. “So there are many miles to go on that score.” No doubt.

It’s worth noting that, at the very least, representation of women in the Arkansas Legislature should improve in 2023, thanks in part to Northwest Arkansas.

Due to redistricting following the 2020 census, Northwest Arkansas will have four new seats in the state House of Representatives, and three of those will, in all likelihood, be occupied by women.

Here’s how the races in the new house districts break down:

• In District 9 (Springdale area) Republican DeAnna Hodges faces Democrat Diana Gonzales Worthen. There’s also a Libertarian candidate in the race, Steve Stilling, but like all Libertarians on the ballot, he’s unlikely to win.

• In District 10 (Bentonville), Republican Mindy McAlindon will take on Democrat Kate Schaffer.

• In District 14 (Centerton) there are no women candidates. Democrat Brian Eaton faces Republican Grant Hodges.

• In District 23 (west Washington County), Republican Kendra Moore defeated two men to win her party’s nomination. There is no Democrat in the race, but there is Ryan Hanson, a Libertarian.

Across the state, 54 women are seeking state legislative seats this year, more than double the number who ran in 2000.

Of course, not all of them will win. Still, an increase over the 31 seats currently held by women seems inevitable.

It also seems very likely Arkansas will help improve the percentage of women governors this year. Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a prohibitive favorite to win the Arkansas governorship in 2022. And, one way or the other (with apologies to Libertarian candidate Frank Gilbert), Arkansas will have a woman in the lieutenant governor’s office: Democrat Kelly Krout or Republican Leslie Rutledge.

So, dear reader, you may be thinking the two major political parties are out there specifically recruiting women to run for office. According to the parties, you’d be wrong.

“We don’t recruit candidates,” said Sarah Jo Reynolds, executive director of the Republican Party of Arkansas. But she added that Northwest Arkansas’ long history as a Republican stronghold makes it a good environment for women to become politically active.

“There’s a lot of strong businesswomen in Northwest Arkansas,” she told the paper. That makes sense to us.

“We didn’t go chasing after them,” said Grant Tennille, Arkansas’ Democratic Party chairman. But he said he believes women are motivated to run by feeling underrepresented on issues that are important to them, primarily education and supporting families. That makes sense, too, as does his point that open seats like the newly created ones in Northwest Arkansas made the prospect of seeking office more attractive.

Parry surmised, we think with good cause, that seeing women in powerful government leadership positions has inspired more women to seek political office.

“We also know that high profile women in office — specifically governor, U.S. Senate — measurably lift the number of runs made by other women,” according to Parry.

That’s not to say that the women seeking those offices all think alike. There are vast differences in the policy positions among the candidates running under different party banners, as you’d expect.

But having more women seeking political office does change the political landscape. While women may not agree on policy, they certainly bring different perspectives and experiences than most men to the table when it comes time to do the work of government. More women running for — and winning — political office is a net gain for the communities they serve.