The organization I am working at this summer is a nonprofit called RepresentWomen. A branch of FairVote, this group does advocacy and research focused on systemic reforms that will help more women get elected to public office. I chose this field because I believe that for the United States to be a representative democracy, its government must reflect the experiences, demographics, and values of all of its people.
RepresentWomen is addressing the fact that women, and especially women of color, are underrepresented at all levels of U.S. government. Their strategy is to focus on rules and systems reforms, such as the implementation of ranked choice voting, gender quotas, and multi-member districts. RepresentWomen also does research, like the Gender Parity Index (GPI) and International Report, to track the progress of women’s representation and to figure out which reforms are most effective.
So far, I have taken on the tasks of updating and redesigning the “Women’s Representation by the Numbers” graphic and scaling it for different social media:
I also make other graphics occasionally, such as for the RepresentWomen Twitter page and for a summary/handout I compiled on the International Report.
I also post from the RepresentWomen Twitter account when I am in the office.
I also helped Cynthia, my boss, write and edit a chapter she will be contributing to a book. I wrote about the disadvantages women face when running for office that stem from sexism in the media and in campaign finance.
In celebration of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, RepresentWomen is helping run this year’s Seneca Falls Revisited, which will feature a number of fascinating speakers and guests. I was assigned to write blog posts about a number of these individuals and will be interviewing as many of them as possible. They will be released online leading up to the convention. I have also been helping to update some of the research, including in the International Report, a report of multi-member districts, and soon the GPI.
I will be working on creating audio content in the form of a podcast, largely by interviewing members of RepresentWomen’s board, but also others. For example, I am in the process of setting up an interview with the hosts of Pantsuit Politics. I also will hopefully have the opportunity to use my editing skills to create video content.
I think my work will help further RepresentWomen’s mission by turning their messages into content that people can understand. Everyone takes in information differently, and the more ways I can show people that these reforms to our electoral systems are crucial to the United States being a representative democracy, the more people will support RepresentWomen’s cause. Progress very broadly looks like more women in government, but before we can get there we have to see districts adopting ranked choice voting, political parties and PACs changing their recruitment and funding strategies, and the introduction of gender quotas into U.S. politics. There is a lot that needs to be done, but that also means there are a lot of possible solutions at hand.
