Women in Congress: Current State and Role of Partisanship

According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which unites the parliaments of many countries (the US Congress is not part of it), before the midterm elections, America ranked 104th out of 193 countries in terms of the number of women in the lower house of the legislature. After the record for the number of women winning congressional elections, the United States is only in 70th place, behind, for example, Uganda, Timor Leste, Zimbabwe, or Iraq. The small number of women in the American Congress looks even more depressing in a historical context. According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University (CAWP), before Tuesday’s midterm elections, only 322 women sat in Congress in the country’s history (208 from the Democratic Party and 114 from the Republican) (Rhinehart). In general, women have made progress in many ways in contrast to Donald Trump’s presidency. The way Trump treated women and his statements on several occasions led to public scandals and resulted in protests and increased political activity