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WASHINGTON — Women have made historic strides on Capitol Hill, with some becoming household names – no one more famously than Representative Nancy Pelosi. In 2007, the California Democrat became the first woman House speaker.
Yet nearly 20 years later, women are dramatically underrepresented in the House and Senate.
There are 151 women in Congress. That’s only one shy of the record set in November 2024. But they are just 28% of the 535 House and Senate members.
“We are living in complicated times, to say the least, and to not have the voice of half the population well represented, and the smarts, and the creativity, and the energy, and the perspectives at the table, we all lose,” said Debbie Walsh, the director of the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University.
As far as women hoping to make it to Capitol Hill, CAWP says only 27% of all House candidates this year are women, and less than 24% of the Senate candidates are women.
By comparison, women make up 51% of the U.S. population.
Studies show that women see themselves less qualified than men to hold office. Women candidates also are likely to have less money, less support, and more demanding household obligations than their male counterparts.
“The kind of fundraising, the kind of beating the political trail, and then the demands of the job once you’re there tend to prioritize the kinds of lives that male breadwinners can have,” said Katherine Turk, a professor of history at UNC-Chapel Hill.
“For women,” Walsh added, “it’s still not a place where they see themselves and they see others that are like them. So there is this sense that, ‘I need to know more. I need to be better.’”
Women serving in Congress, from both parties, said a range of perspectives is important to the legislative process.
“You want people from all walks of life – men, women, young, old, etc. – to kind of bring a diversified opinion to the people’s house,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida.
“As women, we have experiences, quite frankly, that are slightly different than men, whether it’s giving birth, or the kind of child raising that we do, or just having the experience of being thought less than – that we can’t do as much as men or boys. Just growing up with that, I think it gives us the chance to understand what’s important to fight for our own daughters and for all of our children,” said Rep. Laura Friedman, D-California.
Walsh said political parties need to do a better job of recruiting qualified women to run for Congress.
“We’re not going to see elected officials that really reflect the population unless both parties are doing the work of opening the doors and making sure that we see more women, more people of color, more underrepresented voices at the table,” she said.
The representation could change in November, but given the low number of women candidates, gender parity on Capitol Hill likely will not be achieved anytime soon.
“Women have all kinds of experiences with issues that really matter to their communities, to their families," Turk said. "And women’s issues really can’t be sidelined off from politics because they are right at the heart of policy around families, around the economy, around our healthcare, national defense, and the military. So I think the more that women do apply themselves to politics, do take on that enormous challenge of running and fundraising and building a campaign, we’ve seen them be quite successful on both sides of the aisle."
Follow Charlotte Scott on X.
