Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world—with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!
On Tuesday, we paused to honor Women’s Equality Day, marking 105 years since the 19th Amendment certified women’s right to vote. It was a milestone that expanded democracy, but not its completion. Full enfranchisement for many women of color came decades later with the Voting Rights Act, and even today, the promise of equality remains unfinished. As I wrote in my article for Ms. magazine this week, RepresentWomen’s 2025 Gender Parity Index shows just how far we still have to go: women make up only 28 percent of Congress, 24 percent of governors, 34 percent of state legislators, and 25 percent of mayors in major cities.
Those numbers tell a deeper story. Representation is never just about who holds office — it’s about whose priorities are heard. As our partner Liuba Grechen Shirley, founder & CEO of Vote Mama, points out in a recent video: “By age 45, 85 percent of women are moms. Yet just 6.5 percent of Congress are mothers of minor children. There are more millionaires in Congress than moms.” When mothers are missing from the halls of power, so too are the voices that fight for childcare, healthcare, education and economic dignity for working families.
That truth brings us to Labor Day, a holiday born out of workers’ struggle — and one in which women’s labor, both seen and unseen, has always been central. From the garment workers who marched in the streets of New York demanding safer conditions, to leaders like Rose Schneiderman who declared that “the worker must have bread, but she must have roses too,” women have fought not only for fair wages but for dignity and opportunity in every sphere of life.
As Congress returns from recess next week, we stand at a crossroads much like the suffragists and labor organizers before us. The fight for equality cannot stop at the ballot box, nor can it end at the workplace. It requires systemic reforms — including ranked choice voting, proportional representation, and modern workplace supports such as childcare and fair pay for legislators — to ensure women can run, win, serve and lead.
This week, as we reflect on Women’s Equality Day and celebrate Labor Day, we are reminded that progress is never guaranteed. But history shows us that when women carry the torch forward — in the streets, in the workplace, and in the halls of power — democracy expands, justice deepens and every generation inherits a stronger foundation on which to stand.
Birthdays for notable women this week include: Geraldine Ferraro – first woman vice presidential nominee for a major party, Katherine Johnson – a NASA mathematician, Anne Moses – founder of IGNITE, Elsa Walsh – journalist, Monica Worth – former ED of the Women’s Campaign Fund, Gabrielle Fitzgerald – founder & CEO of Panorama Global, Shalanda Young – former director of the U.S. Office of Management & Budget, former first lady Ellen Arthur, and former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola.
Mary Peltola Leading Polls to be Next Governor of Alaska
According to this piece in The 19th, written by Grace Panetta, former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola is leading in the polls to be Alaska’s next governor:
Former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola holds a commanding lead in the 2026 election for governor of Alaska if she chooses to jump into the race, a new survey from progressive pollster Data for Progress (DFP) shows…
Peltola had the highest favorability ratings of major Alaska politicians in the survey, which was shared first with The 19th. She holds a net positive favorability of 9 points, and leads a crowded field of lesser-known and less popular Republican gubernatorial opponents by double-digit margins.
A Stunning Flip in Iowa: Catelin Drey Breaks GOP Majority
In a stunning political upset this week, Democrat Catelin Drey won a special election for Iowa’s open state Senate seat, breaking the GOP’s majority in the chamber. Her victory marks a seismic shift in one of the reddest parts of the state.
Just last November, the district covering much of Sioux City voted for Donald Trump by a margin of more than 11 points. Yet on Tuesday night, Drey — a 37-year-old marketing executive and mom — captured 55 percent of the vote to Republican challenger Rocky Prosch’s 44 percent, representing a swing of more than 20 points from Trump’s performance.
The Democratic National Committee celebrated the win as a sign of Iowans rejecting Republicans as a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s agenda. For Drey, however, the victory was about authenticity and connection with voters. As she told The Des Moines Register:
Drey said she ran for the Senate because “I was frustrated by the representation that I had at the Statehouse. [..]I think that right now we’re seeing an erosion of good policy, and it’s really important that we are listening to voters and doing what we can to represent them well. And right now I think people are frustrated by what’s been happening in Des Moines.
Drey also noted that she ran a positive campaign that resonated with voters:
“And I think that resonated with people, making them feel hopeful and like a regular person was going to be the one that represented them,” she said. “I’m just a mom who’s trying to make life a little bit better for her daughter.”
Drey centered her campaign on addressing the “affordability crisis” — the rising costs of housing, childcare, and healthcare — while also pushing to ensure public education funding keeps pace with inflation. At RepresentWomen, we know that when women win office, they consistently elevate these bread-and-butter issues that matter most to families and future generations.
On election night, the moment of victory was made even more poignant when Drey embraced her young daughter as supporters erupted in applause. Speaking to a crowd at her victory party, she underscored her priorities:
“How do we make housing more affordable? How do we make our child care more affordable? How do we make our health care more affordable? I am ready to hit the ground running on those issues.”
Her win not only delivered a crucial seat to Democrats but also signaled that even in deep-red districts, voters are open to change when they see a candidate who feels both relatable and ready to fight for them.
Solidarity and Resistance in Nicole Collier’s Stand in the Texas Capitol
Texas State Rep. Nicole Collier, a Fort Worth Democrat and trailblazing legislator in her majority minority district, made headlines after staging a silent sit-in in the Texas House chamber on Aug. 18, 2025. She refused to sign a controversial “permission slip” mandating 24/7 police escort before lawmakers could leave, calling it a violation of her dignity and representative autonomy. Instead of complying, Collier stayed overnight in the chamber in protest.
Her lone stand quickly catalyzed a broader show of support. Four women, including mothers and community organizers, joined Collier in solidarity. When they were arrested, supporters like Pooja Sethi and Senator Sarah Eckhardt rallied for their release. The women were jailed overnight and subsequently banned from Capitol grounds for a year. Despite these consequences, their actions were framed as an embodiment of resistance. The 19th notes:
Ultimately it was a cascade of support. Collier stood up for her constituents, the women who protested stood up for Collier, and Eckhardt and Sethi supported them in turn.
“I was there to offer legal guidance, but more importantly, to stand in solidarity with the women taking this brave action,” Sethi told The Barbed Wire. “My presence was rooted in support, care, and deep respect for their courage.”
Sethi said at least three of the women are mothers — and were still willing to leave their children for the evening to fight what they saw as an abuse of power. And after their arrest, the women have been banned from the Texas Capitol grounds for a full year. For now, they said, in the video of their release, “It’s up to you all to keep it going
The more they try to push us down, the more we rise together,” Sethi said. “Women have always been on the front lines of justice movements.”
Charlotte Walker: Australia’s Youngest Senator Speaks with Heart and Vision
At just 21 years old, Labor Senator Charlotte Walker, who officially became Australia’s youngest-ever senator on July 1, 2025, delivered her maiden speech to Parliament on August 26. Raised in rural South Australia, she courageously shared her journey through depression, childhood bullying, and the personal toll of feeling like “damaged goods” due to stigma and shame.
Her speech was a blend of personal honesty and bold policy ambitions: she pledged to champion mental health, housing, generational equity, domestic violence awareness, climate action, and more—highlighting that young Australians are growing up under the “ever‑present threat of climate change.” She struck poignant contrasts, as written in The Guardian:
“In 2050, I won’t be in my late 90s… my friends and I will be in our 40s, and we demand an inhabitable planet.”
Walker also addressed the misogyny and ageist barbs she has faced — from online trolls to dismissive remarks in Parliament — calling them part of the job but underscoring that standing up for young voices makes it all worthwhile.
On a lighter note, she ended with a humorous confession: she had once told her mother a fabricated story—that she and a friend “heroically rescued” kittens from the wild—to explain how their family cat came into their lives. She stated:
“I just really wanted a cat… I only lied because I thought if you knew the truth you’d make me take him back”.
In her earnest, relatable, and unapologetically fresh approach, Sen. Walker embodied the voice of a new generation in Australian politics — fearlessly blending vulnerability with conviction.
2025 UK Youth Poll Reveals Stark Gender Divide
Gen Z in the UK is far from a monolithic group. Men and women differ considerably in their political orientation, issue priorities, engagement, and emotional well-being. A new 2025 report from the John Smith Centre breaks down these differences and examines the widening gender gap among young people in the UK. For instance, while most young people position themselves politically in the centre, noteworthy gender differences appear at the extremes: 20 percent of young women lean Left compared to 13 percent of men, whereas 26 percent of men lean Right versus 15 percent of women. At the 2024 general election, 12 percent of women aged 18 to 24 voted for Reform UK or the Conservatives, compared to 22 percent of men in the same age group. The authors note:
[Our results] reveal several common themes across the studies examined, highlighting shared priorities and challenges for young people. Issues such as distrust in political institutions, concerns about housing affordability and economic stability, and the importance of civic and digital engagement emerge consistently. Despite regional and methodological differences, these studies collectively paint a picture of a generation actively seeking change and prioritising collective action over conventional political pathways.
The BBC interviewed various young people in light of these findings. Aside from questions about why young people are acting this way, and spoke with Dr. Ceri Fowler (Oxford) and other academics as could be the underlying mechanisms:
Dr. Fowler points out that more young women than men go on to higher education, where socially liberal attitudes are more prevalent. Polling from You Gov suggests university graduates are more likely to support left wing parties.
Researchers suspect social media plays a role in the gender divide, she adds, but if someone is “feeling disenfranchised with politics both on the left and the right, then if there are alternatives being offered to you on social media it’s easier to engage with that”.
Rosie Campbell, professor of politics at King’s College London, says the “gender generation gap is growing”.
“In the past, both men and women were becoming liberal on the issue of gender equality, but there is an increasing number of young men who are hostile to this, believing that feminism has gone too far, potentially drawing them to support populist, radical right parties who more often express support for traditional gender roles.”
Understanding the ‘Gender Equality Paradox’
In academic research, a recent phenomenon called the “Gender Equality Paradox” has sparked lively debate. First introduced in a paper by Gijsbert Stoet and David Geary in 2018, the paradox suggested a surprising pattern: in countries with greater gender equality, women were actually less likely to pursue careers in STEM fields compared to women in less gender-equal countries. The authors argued that in more egalitarian societies, where individuals feel freer to choose based on preference, gender differences in interests become more pronounced, leading to more traditional occupational choices.
The study generated significant attention, but also immediate skepticism. Was this paradox a genuine reflection of societal dynamics, or simply a statistical illusion?
Follow-up research has pulled the debate in several directions. For instance, Breda et al. (2020) argue that the paradox can be explained by stereotypes rather than choice. They found that in more egalitarian and developed countries, cultural stereotypes linking math to men are often stronger, reinforcing gendered educational and occupational patterns. They conclude that progress in development alone does not dissolve occupational segregation; intentional policies are needed to counteract the role of stereotypes:
Results suggest that gender occupational segregation can be reduced but will not decrease by itself as societies become more developed. Appropriate policies are therefore needed to limit this segregation or its impact on gender inequality.
Meanwhile, Ilmarinen and Lönnqvist (2024) take issue with the methods underlying paradox claims. They argue that the use of algebraic difference scores, comparing average outcomes for men and women across countries, produces results that are uninterpretable because different combinations of men’s and women’s outcomes can yield the same difference score; the conclusions drawn from such analyses may be misleading or even meaningless:
We argue that direct difference score predictions of this type are impossible to interpret because very different combinations of constituents-mean scores of men and women and properties of these means-can produce identical direct difference score predictions.
Finally, a different explanation comes from research on Simpson’s gender-equality paradox (2024). Here, Berggren and Bergh demonstrate that when countries are grouped into cultural clusters, the apparent paradox often vanishes, or even reverses. What appeared to be a global pattern turns out to be a statistical illusion driven by how data are aggregated and compared across vastly different contexts. The authors go so far as to argue that the paradox is not supported even by basic correlational data, suggesting it may never have existed as a robust phenomenon in the first place:
We show that not even rudimentary, correlational data uphold that prediction. Instead, we find a Simpson’s paradox: Global positive associations between equality and gender differences disappear or reverse when accounting for cultural clusters of countries. Furthermore, data quality and nonsensical/fictional explanations were stronger or on par with equality and development to predict gender differences across countries. In conclusion, the gender-equality paradox appears to be a methodological artifact.
This growing body of work illustrates the vibrant and unsettled nature of research on gender differences and equality. Whether the paradox reflects deeply rooted cultural stereotypes, flawed methodology, or simply a misreading of global patterns, the debate highlights the complexity and political sensitivity of measuring gender equality. Far from a settled fact, the “gender equality paradox” remains a case study in how social science advances through contention, refinement, and the continual questioning of what the data really mean.
Women’s Emergency Response Rooms in Sudan are Signs of Democracy
Sudan’s Women’s Emergency Response Rooms (WRRs) emerged during the country’s civil war, which began in April 2023 as a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict quickly spread beyond the capital city of Khartoum, displacing millions and creating severe shortages of food, water, and medicine. As formal institutions faltered, community-led initiatives, such as the Emergency Response Rooms (EERs), became crucial, with women’s networks playing a central role in providing aid and maintaining social cohesion. These WRRs went beyond distributing food and medicines; they created safe spaces for women, offered clinical support to survivors of sexual violence, provided psychological and reproductive care, and even fostered economic empowerment through cooperatives in handicrafts and soap-making.
Built on an ethos of popular sovereignty and participatory action inherited from the 2018 revolution, WRRs blurred the line between humanitarian response and political organizing. Volunteers operated democratically and flexibly, improvising dignity kits when aid deliveries failed and maintaining decentralized decision-making even amid resource shortages. African Arguments writes:
The ethics of care presents a transformative framework that centres human relationships and practical compassion as foundational to moral reasoning. Rather than treating care as a mere obligation, this approach elevates it to a primary moral value that actively shapes both thought and action.
In this setting, women’s emergency rooms translated the ethics of care from a philosophical concept to a lived reality. Their volunteers rejected artificial divisions between political organizing and humanitarian work, instead embodying care as integrated praxis. Moreover, the women’s rooms fundamentally understood relief work as political action. They created secure systems for handling sexual violence cases, thus applying lessons learned from years of activist resistance.
Louisiana Women Lawmakers Share Leadership Insights at Acadiana Women’s Network Event
At a recent gathering hosted by the Acadiana Women’s Network, Louisiana State Representatives Julie Emerson and Annie Spell offered a candid glimpse into their legislative journeys. Speaking to a room of aspiring leaders and local advocates, both lawmakers reflected on the challenges and triumphs of their time in office, discussing how perseverance, community connections, and personal values shape effective leadership:
Spell said her early months in the legislature have been both challenging and energizing. She credited colleagues in prior sessions with laying the groundwork for major policy shifts, such as the ongoing transformation of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
“As I came in this past regular legislative session, a lot of heavy lifting by colleagues had already happened in 2023 and 2024,” Spell said. “When I arrived, those heavy lifts were already moving, such as the transformation of DOTD, which will lead to increased infrastructure that makes Louisiana and Lafayette a better place to do business, a better place to live, and improve the quality of life.”
The event served as both inspiration and practical guidance for women seeking to navigate and lead in the political arena.
How Much Do You Know About State Constitutions and Courts?
Nancy Watzman writes about a new report in the State Court Report on the little-known but richly varied world of state constitutions and courts, where the rules often go well beyond what the U.S. Constitution covers. Did you know that fewer than half of Americans are even aware that their state has its own constitution? Furthermore, there exists significant variation in the representation of women within the judiciary. Although women constitute a minority among state high court justices nationwide, the Wisconsin Supreme Court comprises six women out of seven justices, representing the highest proportion of female justices of any state. Many state constitutions also feature judges selected via elections, with 38 states using elections for high court judgeships, some even utilizing partisan ballots or geographic districts. This article serves as a timely reminder that the state-level constitutional landscape is both powerful and often overlooked.
That’s all for this week, my friends,
Cynthia
executive director, RepresentWomen
P.S. — Women’s Equality Day may have been Tuesday, but we’ve kept the conversation going all week — and it’s not over yet. At RepresentWomen, we believe Women’s Equality Day shouldn’t just be one day, but every day. That’s why our series continues through the weekend, featuring new reflections alongside those we have already shared by our partners and staff. This week’s video testimonials featured Liuba Grechen Shirley of Vote Mama, Katie Usalis, our programs and partnerships director, and me, discussing why this day matters and what reforms are needed for a democracy that works for everyone.
If you missed the start of the series, be sure to check out our full article in Ms. magazine and explore the clips we’ve shared so far on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn — with more to come through the weekend.
So, to close out this week, let us again hear from Shaina Taub as she reminds us in Suffs:
“Progress is possible, but it is not guaranteed.It will only be made if we keep marching…Yes, the world can be changed, we’ve done it before. So keep marching on.”
And march on we shall — together.
Great Job Cynthia Richie Terrell & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.