50-50 by 2020

50-50 by 2020®: Equal Representation in Government

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50-50 by 2020® is the goal for 50% women and 50% men in the three branches of government in the United States by the year 2020, the 100th anniversary of the right to vote for women. 

Click below to see the women who have been president or prime minister.

Women who have been president, prime minister or chancellor

Maine is the first state with more women than men in the US Congress. New Hampshire has 50‑50 men and women in the Congress. Twelve state legislatures have 30% or more women and many could be 50-50 by 2020:

New Hampshire

37.5%

       Nevada     31.7%

Vermont

37.2%

 Connecticut31.6%

Colorado

37.0%

 Arizona31.1%

Minnesota

34.8%

 Maryland30.9%

Hawaii

32.9%

New Jersey30.8%

Washington

32.7%

 New Mexico      30.4%

Source: Women's Legislative Network

How to Achieve Equal Representation:

        

 

Factoids:  In 2010, 19 states are not represented by a woman in either house of the US Congress, up from 16 states in 2008.

 

The US currently ranks 69th globally in the percentage of women in national legislatures, down from 41st in 1997.

 

A total of 225 women have been representatives in the US House. If all 225 served together, women would be slightly more than half the 435 representatives in the House. Only 38 women have been US Senators; seventeen are currently serving.

 

Seventy-two years after the Declaration of Independence, Elizabeth Cady Stanton proposed the vote for women in 1848. A radical notion at the time, it took 72 years for the nineteenth amendment to be enacted in 1920. Incredibly, it was another 72 years before more than two women were elected to serve in the US Senate at the same time in 1992.

 

 

 

© 2009 - Equal Representation
in Government and Democracy

 

Equal Representation –The Essence of Democracy                             Updated 2010-06-30