Women in Elective Office 2018
107 (20.0%) of the members of the U.S. Congress
- 23 (23%) of the members of the U.S. Senate
- 84 (19.3%) of the members of the U.S. House
72 (23.1%) of Statewide Elective Executive Offices
- 6 Governors
- 12 Lt. Governors
- 8 Attorney Generals
- 11 Secretary of States
- 7 Treasurer/Chief Financial Officer
- 2 State Comptroller
- 9 State Auditor
- 17 Other elected officers
1,878 (25.4%) State Legislators
- 450 (22.8%) State Senators
- 1,428 (26.4) State Representatives
285 cities with populations 100,000 people and over
- 59 (20.7%) of the mayors are women
1,365 cities with populations 30,000 people and above
- 297(21.8%) of the mayors are women
[Center for American Women and Politics 5/30/18]
The number of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies dropped from 32 in 2017 to 24 this year so far. [Fortune]
Female Entrepreneurs received 2.2% of all venture capital funding in 2017.
A study released by the Boston Consulting Group and MassChallenge, found that of the 350 companies examined, the average woman-founded startup received $935,000 in funding. The average male-founded startups received $2.1 million in funding.
The female-founded startups outperformed their male counterparts in terms of revenue, bringing in $730,000 over a five year period versus $662,000 for the men. Women-run companies are returning 78 cents per dollar invested compared to 31 cents for the men. [The Broadsheet, 6/7/18]
Voters in Ireland flocked to the polls and delivered a rebuke to the country’s history of conservative Catholicism. Turnout was 64 percent, and two-thirds voted “Yes” on the referendum on the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution 2018, which repealed the country’s extremely restrictive abortion ban. [CNN, 5/29/18]
Will Northern Ireland be next? It doesn’t appear that way.
“Bias against mothers is one of the strongest forms of bias against women,” said Liz Morris, the deputy director of the Center for Work life Law, a research and advocacy group that focuses on gender and racial equality in the workplace. “I think that there’s a lot of people who would agree that sexual harassment or discrimination in general are wrong who may discriminate against mothers or may accept discrimination against themselves in a way that’s really harmful.”
While mothers themselves are not a protected class of workers, discriminating against someone because of their pregnancy is considered a form of gender discrimination, and bias against mothers because of their caregiving needs can also be classified as a form of family-responsibilities discrimination. [New York Times, 5/16/18]
Eighty-five percent of the graduating class of fashion majors at the Parsons School of Design is female, just as it is at the other major New York fashion schools: the Fashion Institute of Technology, where 86 percent of the graduating class is female, and Pratt, where 54 of the 58 graduating fashion majors are women.
They are all poised to head off into entry-level positions at companies big and small. They will begin with grand ambitions and dreams of the C-suite. And then, somewhere between their climb from middle management to the top, the gender balance will shift and their male colleagues, few and far between though they are in the beginning, will take over. Because fashion, an industry dominated by women’s wear and buoyed by female dollars, with an image sold by women to women, is still largely run by men. [NYT/ Gender Avenger Blog, 5/27/18]
Last month, former NASA scientist Ellen Stofan walked into the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and unlocked the door to the director’s office – which, for the first time, was her own. It was a breakthrough moment as the museum has always had a male director since it first opened in 1976, until now. It seems a flurry of new hires are putting women in the power seat. Carrie Rebora Barratt is the New York Botanical Garden’s new president and CEO, just as Saharah Moon Chapotin has been appointed the new director of the United States Botanic Garden in Washington. Saisha Grayson is also the new time-based media curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. [GenderAvenger, 5/10/18]
Student debt in the United States has reached a staggering $1.5 trillion for the first time, and women hold a disproportionately large percentage of it. Writes Fortune Magazine’s Polina Marinova:
“There are approximately 44 million borrowers in the United States, and the majority of them are women, according to a new report from the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Women represented 56% of those enrolled in American colleges and universities in fall 2016, but the report reveals that women also take on more (and larger) student loans than men.
“In total, women hold nearly two-thirds of the outstanding student debt in America, nearly $900 billion as of mid-2018, the report says.
“The problem is only exacerbated by the fact that men out-earn women in their careers, stretching the time it takes to pay down loans.
“The higher education bubble, which is one-sixth of the U.S. economy, “will likely burst with the force of all previous catastrophes combined,” veteran investor Jim Rogers and former academic dean Robert Craig Baum wrote in a commentary piece for Fortune.
“And when it does, it’s women who will be holding the largest chunk of the tab.”
A judge in Santa Clara County, California sentenced a former Stanford swimmer to six months in jail after he was convicted of three felony counts for sexually assaulting an unconscious 22 year old woman on the Stanford campus. He could have been sentenced to 14 years. He was released after three months.
A recall campaign was started and in the California primary on June 5th, he was removed from office. [The Cut, 6/6/18]