The Point of Electing Women Is to Elect Women
We are more than half of the country and should be more than half of the legislature
It’s a good year to be a woman in a Democratic primary race. According to new research from FiveThirtyEight, Democratic women are winning their primary races twice as often as male candidates. The majority of all female candidates, 65 percent, win their primary races. Being female has helped a candidate more than almost any other factor, including previous experience, military status, or endorsement by name-brand politicians.
I know, I know: identity politics. Get it out of your system now. Any lengthy screeds you have about the merits of voting with one’s uterus and/or vagina can be left in the responses below. (Fun data point: One benefit of the push to nominate more women is that now, not all female politicians have uteruses and/or vaginas.) Regardless, as we head into the midterms, we’re faced with the very real possibility of a blue and female wave. The “female” part of that equation matters, for reasons we shouldn’t (ahem) pussyfoot around.
We tend to hear about female power most often in terms of what it won’t do. Electing women “Won’t Make [Congress] More Bipartisan,” NPR declared this Friday. Electing a woman president “Wouldn’t Erase Centuries of Male-Dominated…
