White men make up 31 percent of the population but hold 65 percent of elected offices in the US

A coalition of non-profits called Who Leads Us analyzed the demographics of 42,000 elected officials at all levels of US government to determine just how much political power is concentrated in the hands of white men. Unsurprisingly, the answer is: a shit-ton!

While white men make up just under a third of the population, they hold almost two-thirds of elected offices. Men have three times as much political power as women, white people have three times as much as people of color, and white men have eight times as much as women of color. As the video asks, given this reality, “Is it a surprise that most Americans feel our democracy is broken?” Nope, it’s just an accurate assessment of the reality.

Check out the data and some shareable infographics here.

Maya DusenberyMaya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

Read more about Maya

Join the Conversation