RepresentWomen is a 501 organization that aims to help women achieve gender parity in public office in the United States. The organization conducts research and advocacy work to advance women’s representation through candidate recruitment rules so more women run, electoral reforms that promote "fairer" voting systems so more women win, and the modernization of legislative rules so more women can serve and lead effectively, once elected. Their mission, according to their website, is to “strengthen our democracy by advancing reforms that break down barriers to ensure more women can run, win, serve, and lead.” RepresentWomen, originally called Representation2020, started in 2013 as a project of FairVote, a nonprofit that advocates for electoral reform in the United States. The organization changed its name to RepresentWomen and achieved nonprofit status in 2018. RepresentWomen is based in Takoma Park, Maryland.
RepresentWomen has put out a Gender Parity Index every year since 2014. This report scores local, state, and federal U.S. governments on the degree to which they are composed of women. Each state is given a letter grade reflecting how close they are to gender parity. Grades are based on a point system measuring the proportion of women in Congress, state legislatures, state executive positions, and local executive positions. States receive an "A" grade if they score a 50.0 and above, a "B" if they score between 49.9 and 33.0, a "C" if they are between 32.9 and 25.0, a "D" if they are between 24.9 and 10.0, and an "F" if they score below 10.0. "A"-grade states are considered to have reached gender parity across all levels of elected government. The only state to have received an "A" grade on their index is New Hampshire, though in 2019, its grade dipped to a "B" with a score of 49.1. With the majority of states ranking between a "C" and "D", the 2018 report found that “women are underrepresented at the national, state, and local level, and that parity for men and women in elected office is unlikely to occur without structural changes in recruitment, electoral, and legislative rules.” It also found that in 2018, women made up only 25.3 percent of state legislators. The 2019 report found that women are still underrepresented, despite the fact that "women in 2018 filed to run, became party nominees, and won against other candidates live never before." According to the 2019 index, the 2018 "Year of the Woman" yielded record breakthroughs for women, including the largest-ever class of women in the U.S. Congress, gender-balanced state legislatures in Nevada, and new firsts for women of color, members of the LGBT community, and young people. Still, no state achieved gender parity in the 2019 index.
Individual and PAC Giving to Women Candidates (2016)
In 2016, RepresentWomen partnered with The Center for Responsive Politics and Common Cause to explore political giving to congressional candidates with a gender lens and create transparency on how political giving impacts the "viability" of candidates. This partnership terminated with the release of a report titled, "Individual and PAC Giving to Women Candidates."
International Research: Why Rules and Systems Matter (2018, 2019)
RepresentWomen released an international report in 2018, titled, “Why Rules and Systems Matter: Lessons from Around the World.” This report reviewed how different policies and systems affect women’s representation in 193 countries and ranked countries based on their levels of women’s representation. The research found that proportional representation voting systems and gender quotas were associated with the increased representation of women.
RepresentWomen advocates for fair representation voting implementation in the United States through the use of ranked choice voting and multi-member districts. They identify the Fair Representation Act, introduced by Rep. Donald Beyer Jr., as a way to achieve this reform to electoral systems. RepresentWomen’s executive director Cynthia Richie Terrell played a role in creating the Fair Representation Act.
