In 2021, women hold a record 143 seats in Congress. Despite major gains in the past decade, women are still significantly underrepresented in federal policymaking. By some estimates, it could take a century at our current rate for our legislature to achieve equal representation.

Statistics conveyed by organizations like the Center for American Women in Politics and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research highlight this disparity: women comprise roughly 51 percent of the population and 53 percent of the electorate but only 27 percent of Congress. Women are not the only constituency impacted by unequal representation – our entire policymaking process suffers.

Since 2000, Rachel’s Network has made the case that gender disparity in government not only stymies equality, it has serious implications for environmental policy as well.

In the US House of Representatives, women have had higher average environmental scores in every year that LCV has kept records. Women’s average score from 1972-2019 is 68.9 while men’s is 45.5. 

Within each political party, this pattern persists, although the discrepancy is less pronounced. The average scores of Democratic women surpass those of Democratic men in nearly every year since 1972 and their average is much higher: 87.1 vs 69.7. Since 2003, the scores of Republican women in the House have roughly tracked Republican men’s scores, but their overall average since 1972 is 24.5 compared to men’s 19.7.

Just as in the House of Representatives, women’s average LCV score in the Senate since 1972 is higher than men’s overall (67.2 vs 45.3) and within each party (D: 84.9 vs 69.7; R: 30 vs 19.7). Year by year, the picture is more complicated, primarily because comparatively few women have served in the Senate. From 1973-1977, no women served at all, and until 1991, only 1 or 2 women served at any one time. To put it another way, pre-1991 averages account for the scores of 98-99 men vs 1 or 2 women. The large swings in LCV scores in earlier years are partly due to this small sample size.