From the Center – James Castle

A recent New York Times news story discussed the potential status of women in the 2012 congressional elections. Many people quickly point to the low number of women in the national legislature (and lower legislatures), and how undemocratic this is, given that over half of our population is female, making this group seriously underrepresented.

Albeit true, the overall underrepresentation of women in the legislature, though most obvious, is perhaps not the first issue women and their supporters should address.

According to the data on the U.S. Congress’ webpage, there are 96 women in both the House and the Senate, 78 of them in the House and 18 in the Senate. But only 17 of those women in the House, and only four of the 18 women in the Senate, are Republican. This means 78 percent of women in both the House and the Senate are Democrat. And this gender gap in party representation (perhaps due to many Republicans endorsing traditional gender ideology, which discourages women’s presence in the public realm) poses a more immediate problem.

According to a 2004 article by political scientist Mala Htun, quotas, that is, set minimum numbers of certain groups — in this case, women — required to represent each party in the legislature, are the most appropriate standard for a category like gender, because gender cross-cuts parties, races, religions, etc.

Although an increase in the representation of women increases the focus on women’s issues, women nonetheless have little trouble successfully passing the legislation they sponsor relative to male legislators, according to political scientist Kathleen Bratton in her 2005 study on token women in state legislatures. Because American politics is so partisan, it is critical that groups that cross-cut parties are represented relatively evenly in the parties, as this would allow group members on all sides to address women’s issues. If half the members of Congress were women, partisan politics would still prevail if all of them were Democrat.

James Castle is a senior from Stilwell in Human Sexuality and Political Science

From the Right – Billy McCroy

Considering that they represent half of the population, women should have representation in Congress. The 2012 election could see the number of female members of Congress grow to new heights. The number of female senators has steadily risen since 1981, when there were only two. There are currently 17 in the United States Senate and 72 female Representatives. However, this entire argument is counterproductive. We will never reach true equality until Congressional members are not seen as either male or female, white or minority, but simply Americans in public office.

We must look at these members of Congress on their own achievements, simply collecting them into a group such as, female members of Congress, ignores their individuality. An “equality-enforced” policy would diminish the accomplishments and hurt the legitimacy of the election process. Electing people solely based on their gender is a slap in the face to the people who have successfully been elected regardless of their gender. They should be in Congress based on their political beliefs and electability, not their gender.

As long as these public officials vote in the interest of their constituents and the United States of America, they should be viewed as upstanding citizens ready for public office. Personally, I will not take part in the false assumption that female members of Congress possess any different or special qualities than those of male members. The idea that female members are more apt to compromise across the aisle doesn’t necessarily achieve that sense of equality that should be striven for. The true beauty of the electoral process is that people will vote for the candidate who best represents their political beliefs. The growing numbers of women in Congress show that Americans feel women can do that.

Billy McCroy is a junior in Economics from Des Moines, Iowa

From the Left – Kelly Cosby

The very real truth is that women are underrepresented in the legislature, and no matter what you want to say about gender equality or gender disparities, this severe underrepresentation is bad for women.

It is troubling that recruitment of women in the Republican Party is declining because this means less overall representation for women. And female Democrat incumbents may face a tough race in the next election.

The negative effects can be felt both in terms of symbolism and issue representation.

The symbolic representation (known as descriptive representation) that comes with simply having higher numbers of women, regardless of how they influence policymaking, plays an important role in getting women in the U.S. involved in the political process.

A legislature full of men can be viewed in some ways as a force of opposition to women’s rights groups. Even though I don’t believe most men truly “oppose” serving women’s interests, it is sometimes perceived that way. As Kay Bailey Hutchison (Senator from Texas) said in the New York Times, men aren’t necessarily against legislation driven by women for women; “it was just that they never thought about the issue.”

It is simply a lack of personal experience with the issues that causes men to overlook legislation needed for gender equality, decreasing violence against women, etc. And even in an ideal world where men thought of these issues first, a lack of women in government would still be a misrepresentation of our population.

This is the reason why have members of the Senate and House distributed from different states; the representation of each state’s interest is important. It is the same when it comes to demographic traits.

This also leads to the idea that more women in the legislature can increase the possibility of good substantive representation, meaning actually representing the interests of women. This is different from descriptive representation because in some cases, of course, a female representative may not necessarily push women’s issues through.

Some argue that women are far more likely to champion women’s causes in Congress, which makes sense. But unless there is a larger group of women serving in the Senate, that substantive representation is compromised. A larger group of women would be more influential.

It looks like that may not happen soon, and the current representation women have may be in jeopardy.

Kelly Cosby is a senior in Political Science and English from Overland Park