By: Danielle Apfel
Despite the long stretch between now and the actual 2016 Presidential Election, a vast number of potential candidates have already announced their campaigns. On both sides of the aisle, leaders have already begun exploratory committees as well as officially announced their entrance into the race for their party’s nomination; all over a year before the primaries begin.
While the elections may be far away, political leaders are well on their way to establishing where they stand in comparison to their running-mates, from their own party as well as from their opposing party. This far in advance, and twenty candidates have already come forward: five from the Democrats, and fifteen from the Republicans. What is most striking, amongst the baffling number of candidates, is the illogical number of women currently in the race.
Of course, the current star-player for the Democrats is none other than Hillary Clinton. One of five Democrats already in the race, she has gained a great deal of support as the most well known within the current pool.
While one in five does not appear to be too imbalanced, the Republican Party’s nomination pool has a much greater disparity. Of the fifteen Republicans officially running, only one is a woman. Carly Fiorina is a former business executive and the lone woman running amongst the sea of Republican men.
With women reaching over 50% of the American population, it is discouraging to see the disproportionate percentage of women representatives. For a country with more than half of its population composed of women, it is unreasonable and inexcusable that women control less than 20% of Congress. According to Rutger’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, women representatives only hold 19.4% of Congressional seats.
When looking at these proportions, the one to five ratio in the Democratic pool does not seem so out of place. However, the fact that only so few of the country’s representatives are women helps to explain why more women are not running for their party’s presidential nomination.
Clinton may have vast and long-running experience in American politics, and Fiorina may be an exemplary businesswoman in today’s market, but they are by no means the only two women capable of running. As Fiorina is not even a government leader of member of Congress, it is shocking that Clinton has no other female competition. The eighteen, predominately white, men on both sides of the aisle are incapable of truly representing women in this election. This is not to say that either Clinton or Fiorina should be the parties’ nominees, or that either one is the best suited for the job- that much remains to be seen- but it remains true that they are the only women currently seeking the nomination. The two female candidates, out of a pool of twenty candidates, establish that women leaders are a minority in the race that is supposed to represent the majority.
Both of these women are exemplary leaders, in political, economic, and social issues, and can definitely appeal to women voters. However, there is no denying that they demonstrate the continued disparity of female representation in the American government.