Tweeting about this post of mine, Dayo Olopade asked “Where are the black women in politics?”
This is probably too literal an answer, but they’re where you usually find influential African-American politicians — the United States House of Representatives. There are 74 women in the House of Representatives of whom 12 are African-American. That makes women about 30 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus, higher than their overall representation in the House which is about 17 percent. The black women in congress are all Democrats, and the Democrats have a higher women’s share in the caucus, but even so the Democratic caucus as a whole is only 22 percent female. Since most of the people who vote for Democrats are women, this is a pretty ridiculously low ratio, but the fact of the matter is that the African-American community seems to be blazing the trail in the direction of somewhat-less-inequality.
The world’s largest share of women parliamentarians is found in Sweden where men help take care of children and there’s a robust political tradition of “feminist natalism.” In the United States, voters show no inclination to discriminate against women who run for office but women are much less likely to be recruited to run.