The 114th United States Congress was sworn in January 3rd, 2015 and these Congressional leaders look widely different from the past 200 years. Although don’t get too excited because Congress is still 80% male and 80% white but, 104 of the current members of Congress are women. However to be actually be representative of the American people Congress would have to have 272 women. This Congress is said to be the most diverse in American history, which is actually kind of sad. According to a Huffington Post article, “Congress continues to be dominated by Christians, and the growing number of Americans who do not identify with any religion are hugely underrepresented. Racial minorities also fall short, with the 13.2 percent of black Americans and 17.1 percent of Hispanic Americans represented by only 8.5 and 6.9 percent of Congress, respectively.” Even with Congress still not representative of the American people, this is a large step in the right direction for women and racial minorities in America. So basically if you’re currently in Congress, as John Oliver said, “Congrats on your white maleness.”

Nevertheless, the news of change and diversity does not sit well with some Americans. In a Washington Post article by Philip Bump published on March 6th, 2015, not much would change if there were more women in Congress. Bump argues that action taken in Congress is determined by party identification not sex. To test his hypothesis, Bump used GovTrack.us to test what would happen if the number of men and women were switched. Bump said, “We took a variety of votes, and redistributed the results by gender within a party. And almost always, the effects were small.” He then applied the switched Congress to the Affordable Care Act and discovered that there were actually 21 more votes in the House. Surprise, surprise, women are more likely to vote for the bill that will give 47 million women access to preventive women’s health services… weird. Bump then states that votes were only switched between parties because otherwise the Democrats, who typically have more female members, would “disproportionately favor Democrats”.

In response to this John Sides wrote an article to his colleague on the Washington Post published on March 7th, 2015 where he argued that more women in Congress would most likely have many benefits for women in America. Sides states that Bump’s results were only based on roll call votes and that “’congressional action’ involves a lot more than roll call voting.” Sides says that women are more likely to discuss issues that involve women such as child care, reproductive rights, pay equity, and women’s health care. Hmm, that seems suspicious... I thought only old white men were allowed to make decisions for me. Sides says “Tali Mendelberg, Chris Karpowitz and Nicholas Goedert show that as women become more numerous in a decision-making body, they are more likely to articulate the distinctive concerns of women.” He then says, however, that “these results are based on experiments, not on actual deliberations in Congress.”  Although these are just experiments, they may suggest that female Congressional leader may be able to better advocate for women and would work even harder to advance these ideas through the legislative process if women’s representation were increased.

Joseph Williams for the US News and World Report writes in an article issued March 3rd, 2015 that discussed Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s address to the EMILY’s List where she discussed the difference women have made recently in Congress. Klobuchar said in the speech that “women get things done” and even frequently cross party lines when working together. Klobuchar said that the average Congresswomen cosponsored 6 bills with other women while the average male only cosponsored around 4 bills with other men. Williams writes “That came in handy, Klobuchar says, during the 2013 budget shutdown, when a bipartisan group met to try to work out a solution. “We’re only 20 percent of the Senate, right? But we were half of the group that put together the solution,” legislation that ended the shutdown.” Throughout the speech Klobuchar brought up examples of women in Congress getting things done such as Sen. Debbie Stabenow Violence Against Women Act and her negotiations on the 2014 Farm bill.  During the 113th Congress which hit an all-time productivity low, according to Williams “is a pretty compelling argument to have more of them around.”

Having such a diverse Congress is a giant step in the right direction but we still have a long way to go. It should be clear to everyone that our country truly is diverse and filled with many different cultures, as it truly is. However, for some reason, that is not represented in our government. I feel like this issue of underrepresentation goes beyond our government but equates more to the racist and sexist views of the past that we as a nation are still trying to overcome. Congress would better be able to do their job if all people and opinions were represented. It is no small wonder once more women were sworn into Congress they got more done. After going so long without representation why would they choose to waste the time they are given? It also isn’t surprising that some people think adding more women into Congress wouldn’t change a thing. To me that sounds like they are trying to invalidate the issue altogether. All in all, representation for all in Congress is the way to fix the equality issues that seem to still be a major issue in modern day America.

In conclusion, there are now more women represented in Congress than ever before. This is an exciting time in America history but the work is yet to be completed. Women and many other minorities are still vastly underrepresented in our government. As Marie Curie said “Progress is neither swift nor easy.” Well congratulations America, we have taken a big step into a brighter and more equal future but the work is still far from over.  Representation matters and it’s time we as a country recognized that and decided to move forward, together.