women in politics

For stats on women elected officials in US, State, and local categories see this research report from Rutgers for 2011.

For starters:

Women hold 73 of 435 Seats in the US House of Representatives, which is 16.8%. Women Senators hold 17 seats out of 100 seats in the US Senate.

In 2011 71 women hold statewide elective office in the US. Women hold 22.4% of 317 of these positions.

NOTE: NC is stronger in % of statewide offices held by women, but weaker in legislative seats held.

Only 6 of 50 NC Senate seats (12%) belong to women in North Carolina, but women in the NC Council of State include Sec. of State Elaine Marshall, State Treasurer Janet Cowell, and State Auditor Woods and others.

A FB friend and fellow NC Women's Political Caucus member sent me a message with this link to Political Women web site for those seeking political jobs who are female. Check it out.

You can tell a Republican woman running for office is getting desperate when she plays the sexism card.

Candid comments about the latest Republican messiah.

Appearance matters in politics, for male and female candidates. But it is an inescapable fact of political life that for female candidates, appearance matters more. Successful female politicians needn’t be model-thin, but cringe-at-the-thought-of-sitting-next-to-them-on-an-airplane levels of obesity are rare among women in politics. In a potential presidential candidate, being as fat as Christie would be unimaginable for a woman.

Now that John Edwards has confessed his affair, the blogosphere has stopped talking about why the mainstream media wasn't covering the allegations, and started talking about whether and how it matters.

It matters to me, and here's why. [Cross-posted at my Mojo Mom blog]

Frontpaged by James.