Quick Takes

Published: April 2009

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111^th U.S. Congress

• Women hold 17 (17.0%) of the 100 Senate seats, up from 16 in the 110^th U.S. Senate.¹
• Women hold 73 (16.8%) of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, up from 71 in the 110^th House of Representatives.¹
• There are 20 women of color in Congress, representing 3.9% of the total members of Congress and 22.2% of the 90 women members of Congress. The 110^th Congress had 21 women of color.¹
• In 2007, Nancy Pelosi was the first woman elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives.¹

Cabinet

• 40 women have held a total of 45 cabinet or cabinet-level appointments in the history of the U.S.¹

Governors

• 8 of the current governors are women, a decrease of 1 from the previous term.¹
• No woman of color has ever been governor of a U.S. state.¹

State Legislatures

• 1,789 (24.2%) of the 7,382 state legislators are women, an increase from 1,732 during the previous term.¹
• Women hold 436 (22.1%) of the 1,971 state senate seats and 1,353 (25.0%) of the 5,411 state house seats. ¹
• Since 1971, the number of women serving in state legislatures has more than quintupled. ¹

Statewide Elective Executive Offices

• In 2009, 75 women hold statewide elective executive offices around the country, or 23.9% of the 314 available positions.¹

Mayors

• 193 women (16.9%) are mayors of U.S. cities with more than 30,000 residents.¹

Women in Parliaments, Internationally

• The U.S. ranks 71^st in the world in terms of women's representation in national legislatures or parliaments out 188 direct election countries (as of February 28, 2009), down from 69^th in May 2008, up from 71^st in December 2007, down from 66 in November 2007, up from 67^th in August 2005, and down from 61^st in April 2005 and 57^th in November 2004. Rwanda is currently no. 1, followed by Sweden, Cuba, Finland, Argentina, the Netherlands, Denmark, Costa Rica, Spain, and Norway.²

Women Heads of State

The following countries have democratically elected women to lead their countries:³

 

Head of State	Title	Country
Michelle Bachelet	President	Chile
Luisa Dias Diogo	Prime Minister	Mozambique
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner	President	Argentina
Zinaida Grecianii	Prime Minister	Moldova
Tarja Halonen	President	Finland
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf	President	Republic of Liberia
Emily Saïdy de Jongh-Elhage	Prime Minister	The Netherlands Antilles
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo	President	The Philippines
Mary McAleese	President	Ireland
Angela Merkel	Chancellor	Germany
Prathiba Patil	President	India
Michele Pierre-Louis	Prime Minister	Haiti
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir	Prime Minister	Iceland
Yulia Tymoshenko	Prime Minister	Ukraine
Khaleda Zia	Prime Minister	Bangladesh

 

SOURCES

¹ Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers.

² Inter-Parliamentary Union, "Women in National Parliaments" (February 28, 2009).

³ Council of Women World Leaders, unpublished data (2009).

 

UPDATED April 30, 2009