2018 Could See a Record Number of Women Run for Office

After the Trump administration took office, many people — especially women — resisted. They marched. They volunteered. They ran for office.

And encouragingly, the number of female candidates has swelled. Women swept the 2017 elections, and they turned out in record numbers to contact and support organizations that promote gender equality in politics.

As Axios reported, “More than 15,000 women have contacted She Should Run — a nonpartisan organization dedicated to recruiting and training women to run for elected office — since last November. And more than 19,000 have contacted EMILY’s List, a group that helps get pro-choice Dem women get elected, since Trump’s victory.”

Some women wanted to stand up to President Donald Trump’s sexism and history of alleged sexual assault and harassment. Others wanted to compensate for the blind spots that current politicians seem to have.

Take Jacquelyn Gill, a paleoecologist and biogeographer at the University of Maine. Last January, she registered with 314 Action, a group that encourages scientists to throw their hat into the political ring.

“If you’d told me a year ago that I would consider running for office, I would have laughed,” Gill told the Atlantic. “I always fantasized about serving an administration in an advisory capacity, but we now have explicitly anti-science people in office and in the Cabinet. Waiting passively for people to tap me for my expertise won’t be enough.”

A handful of female candidates have also felt emboldened by Trump. After all, he is the first president without political or military experience.

“He fuels a conversation that there’s no one path to the White House, there’s no one background,” Erin Loos Cutraro, CEO of She Should Run, to CNN. “The electorate is obviously looking for a different model, a different type of leadership [and women could fit that bill].”

Of course, no matter who’s in office, patriarchy has maintained a stranglehold on our governments for far too long. Female staffers in Obama’s White House even had to develop strategies to prevent men from speaking over them.

Today, fewer than 1 in 5 representatives in Congress is a woman. And as Lauren Longo notes on Care2, at current rates the United States will reach gender parity in 100 years. It’s far past time for that to change.

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr