Rebecca Leber

www.policymic.com — I can count on my fingers and toes the number of women in the U.S. Senate. There are only 17 women in the Senate, while 72 serve in the House. The numbers in state legislatures and governorships are equally abysmal; none exceed 25% of total seats.

Is this the 1950s?

Women in politics need encouragement, mentorship, funding, and backers. Some countries have resorted to gender quotas, but U.S. parties can easily redress this imbalance by making the political recruitment of women a higher priority in 2012 and beyond. The representation of women’s interests in government is severely lacking, so party leadership and nonpartisan groups should actively find qualified women to run at all levels of office.

The thinking that representatives should literally look like their constituents — in race, gender, or socioeconomic status — is called descriptive representation. While Washington’s breakdown does not need to strictly resemble the national census, women should be suited to speak on women’s issues. No matter what your view is on abortion, it is unsettling that men mostly dictate what a woman can do with her body. But, most telling is the underrepresentation of women’s issues in legislation. According to the Center for American Progress, unmarried women “represent the largest share of adults in need of government services, such as public assistance, housing assistance, and food ...