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Jan. 11, 2025 19:16-20:03 - CSPAN
46:53
Washington Journal Kelly Dittmar
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Main
t
tammy thueringer
cspan 05:23
Appearances
t
tracy shannon
00:43
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
Confirmation hearings.
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The House returns for Business Monday at noon Eastern for speeches with legislative work later in the afternoon.
A number of Amtrak and disaster-related measures are on the calendar.
Later in the week, the representatives are expected to take up other bills, including H.R. 28, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025, and H.R. 30, Preventing Violence Against Women by a Legal Aliens Act.
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It would require the Homeland Security Department to detain undocumented immigrants for theft-related crimes.
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As always, watch the House live on C-SPAN and the Senate on C-SPAN 2.
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tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Joining us now to discuss the role and trends of women serving in elected office, Kelly Dittmar.
She's the research director at Rutgers University's Center for American Women in Politics.
Kelly, welcome back to the program.
unidentified
Thanks for having me.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Remind our audience what your organization, what the center does and its mission.
unidentified
For over 50 years, the Center for American Women in Politics has been investigating and tracking women's political progress.
We're often known for tracking representation, so the numbers of women in office across levels, but we also do analysis of women as candidates, the diversity among women, as well as behavior of women as voters.
And in addition to just keeping track of numbers, we do research to understand why those numbers are where they are, why it matters to have women's political representation across levels and types.
And then we do programs.
Our programs are also invested in building women's political power.
And so we have ready-to-run and new leadership national training programs across many states that try to do this work to target and support women and others who want to support women to increase their representation and influence in politics.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
And as you mentioned, the center does track the number of women in politics at all levels.
Wanted to share the numbers for Congress for the new Congress.
It just came into office last Friday.
If we are looking at the Senate, there are 25 women serving in the 119th Congress.
That is 25%.
There's 125 in the House.
That is about 28, almost 29% of the 435 seats.
And not included in those numbers, but we want to make sure to note them are four delegates, non-voting delegates.
Kelly, when we look at those numbers, they are the same as they were last year.
There's no gain.
Why?
What are some of the factors behind those numbers staying where they are?
unidentified
Yeah, I mean, we have a slight decrease by one, but yeah, they're about stasis, right?
And why is that?
There are a couple reasons.
One is we didn't have a mass increase or a significant increase in the number of women running this cycle.
So we had a smaller pool than we had in the past few cycles.
If you remember, we had a record year for women in 2018 where we had a huge jump in the number of women running as well as the number of women winning.
And that continued through 2020.
We're starting to see a kind of plateau and even a little bit of a decline since then going into 24.
So that affects kind of how what the results will look like.
We also had a high number of women retiring or leaving to run for other office.
So what that meant is that we started at a deficit in this cycle.
We had to fill in those losses and then try to make additional gains.
So we had about 13 women leaving.
We had 18 new women in the House.
So again, you were going to only see slight increases, if any.
And then of course we saw other incumbent losses and defeats along the way.
So the lack of the loss of some incumbents, the smaller number of candidates were certainly things that contributed.
tracy shannon ▲ ● ▼
And lastly, typically in years where we see Republicans fare better or at least Democrats fare not as good as expected or not as good as they have in previous cycles, that tends to not be great for women because women are a much larger proportion of Democratic candidates than they are Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
And Kelly, when we look at research, talk about the impact that research has shown about women serving in Congress and the impact they've had on policymaking and the overall legislative outcomes.
unidentified
Yeah, I mean, when we talk about the importance and representation of women, we often talk about it maybe in three ways.
One is it's a democratic imperative, right?
We say we're a representative democracy, so our governmental institutions should be representative of the constituents they serve.
And of course, women are over 50% of the population.
So there's a kind of fairness, justice, democratic imperative to why it matters to have women in office.
Another reason is it's symbolically important, right?
People look at government and they say, is that a place for me?
Is that a place that I can make change?
And if they don't see people who share some of their identities and lived experiences, they may believe it's not.
tracy shannon ▲ ● ▼
And they may also have a little less trust in those institutions that they're going to look out for them.
unidentified
But lastly, as you're asking, you know, primarily people want to know what difference does it make in policy?
And the research that my colleagues and I have done, as well as many other scholars, have looked at the substantive differences and outcomes of having women in office.
It's not only changing a specific policy or bringing a specific policy outcome, it's changing conversations.
So we know, for example, when women are at the table, they're going to raise different lived experiences and concerns that maybe their male counterparts aren't aware of.
When we were looking at welfare reform, it was women who were saying, sure, we can put, we can require a work requirement and welfare, but what are we going to do about the child care aspect of that?
When we had more women than ever on the armed services committees, women were saying, are we going to address sexual assault issues in the military in a serious way?
And that was women across the aisle.
They were also saying, you know what, we should also make sure that body armor fits women in the right way.
So there are just real life experiences and perspectives that women bring that will shape not only the outcomes, but the agendas and the conversations.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Kelly Dittmart, Research Director, Rutgers University's Center for American Women in Politics.
If you have a question or comment for her, you can start calling in now.
The Lions, Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Independence, 202-748-8002.
Kelly, along the lines of what you were just saying, wanted to share a headline that was out last month from ABC News.
It says, no women will lead House committees for the first time in two decades.
Your reaction.
unidentified
Yeah, I mean, this is part and parcel of the partisan division or problem we have when we talk about women's political representation.
So I mentioned earlier that at the candidate phase, Democratic women are much better represented among Democratic candidates than our Republicans.
But the same is true when we look at office holders.
So from the state legislative level all the way up to Congress, women are a much smaller proportion of all Republicans or Republican caucuses.
tracy shannon ▲ ● ▼
In fact, when you look at state legislators, for example, in over half of our states, women are at parity or above with their Democratic counterparts in the Democratic Party.
unidentified
But in no state are women at parity with men among Republicans.
When we look at Congress and again, any other level of office, that has real implications for the work of that caucus, especially when Republicans are in the majority.
So what we're seeing in the House is that now Republicans, you know, again, are in the majority.
That means that they hold all the chairmanships.
And there are not enough women.
There are not women in that level of seniority at this point to hold those chairmanships.
There's just a smaller number that are likely to ascend to those positions.
If Democrats were in control, we would have many more, right?
We see that in the ranking members.
So to me, it leads me to kind of the continued request or hope that the Republican Party will also look at ways to be more strategic and targeted in the support of women.
But, you know, we can talk more about this.
That has really been counter to the philosophy of the party, which has said we don't worry about or target demographic diversity.
We're focused on merit and we should not look at identity as part of that.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
We'll bring our audience into the discussion and start with Homer in Louisiana, Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Homer.
unidentified
Yes, sir.
I hear you this morning.
I'm an 82-year-old veteran.
And excuse me, but I think that women ought to get a good chance at this.
These old white men have been doing it for been messing over 400 years.
So why don't we give the women a chance?
And I didn't understand.
They got the biggest voting block.
I didn't understand them a lot of things going on.
And I just put an elected seat done in my lifetime.
See how the women run this thing.
And thank you for the letting me rattle off.
Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Kelly, your response?
unidentified
Yeah, I mean, first of all, thank you for your service.
And I certainly agree that, you know, there are so many more opportunities for women to ascend to political leadership.
But, you know, unfortunately, we've had a lot of barriers and challenges in the way.
Some who don't have that same belief that women's lived experiences and perspectives should be brought into office.
One thing I just want to add to that, just because the caller mentioned his status as a veteran, sometimes when we talk about the importance of women's representation, those who maybe reject the idea that we should care about gender divisions or differences will say, well, that's just checking off a box.
It doesn't mean anything.
But when we say, hey, we want more veterans or folks with military experience in office, they'll say that's really valuable, right?
And I agree with that.
I agree, though, that the same way we think about veterans having distinct lived experiences that would matter for policy discussions, women in our country and women of diverse backgrounds have distinct lived experiences by almost every measure, education, health, economically.
And so we should value those experiences in similar ways.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Let's hear from Tina in Tennessee, Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Tina.
unidentified
Good morning.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Go ahead, Tina.
unidentified
Okay.
I was calling to say that my mother went to Vanderbilt High Vanderbilt University and she was the secretary at my high school.
I wanted to be an engineer, and so I applied.
My first choice was MIT, and I got a letter back like three days later that basically said, it didn't say you must be stupid.
It just said, in case you haven't heard, we don't accept women.
And so I applied.
My second choice, I didn't want to stay in Nashville where I live, was Georgia Tech and got the same letter back.
I didn't think to read about what sexes they took.
And so my third choice was Vanderbilt.
And when I got there, I was real complimented that my advisor, they said the advisors always pick the students they want because they compete with each other.
Well, the dean of students that assigns these or lets people pick picks first, and he picked me as one of his.
And I asked him why he picked me, and he said, I always picked all the girls and they're four in your class of about, I think, 400 people because their standards are so high that they do well.
They do better than all the rest.
And I think I have, if my mother hadn't been a secretary, if it hadn't been for my father saying you can be an engineer, just keep trying, I would have looked at, I would not have thought about working because I didn't know anybody whose mother worked.
If my mother had worked and my grandmother had worked in a professional position, I would have been a lot more likely to have gone into it.
And we're just now reaching out my grandmother now, and I've got grandchildren that are going into a profession.
And I have a granddaughter who's now a lawyer.
And they, so they, that example, you know, that's what do I know that adults did when you're in high school makes a big difference.
We're just now entering into the position where people can see the examples of women, basically.
That's my comment.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Kelly.
unidentified
Yeah, I mean, I agree.
That's such a good example of, you know, what Marion Wright Edelman would always say, which was you can't be what you can't see.
And I think as I was talking earlier about the symbolic importance of having women in positions of political power, it's really hard to tangibly measure that.
And I have some colleagues who've really done important work to look at young people and who they see as political leaders.
And we do see biases still.
Even though women are increasing their representation, it is still more likely that if you ask a young person to draw a political leader, they draw a man because that's what they're used to seeing.
And that has real ripple and psychological effects because then young women may say, okay, well, what are my options?
Maybe politics isn't one of those.
And I should add that there are racial disparities, of course, across these levels of office.
And so the same is true.
If you don't see individuals like you who share those identities and experiences, you might decide that this place is not for you.
And what that means is we lose your voice in the political process.
So it is really important.
And that's one of the reasons that we do the work that we do to try to amplify the women who are there and what they're doing across the aisle, across parties, as well as to encourage others, young women especially, to consider political service.
One of the things, one of the other things that the caller mentioned was different standards.
Unfortunately, we see that that's still true.
We can look to our most recent election and find plenty of examples where women are often held to higher standards.
And their anticipation of that means that when they're campaigning for office, et cetera, you're going to see women much more likely talk through all of their qualifications, have detailed policy plans.
And even still, people will say it's not enough.
We know that for men, a lot of times those qualifications are just assumed.
And so we still have an unlevel playing field.
While it's improving, it's still unlevel when it comes to gender and intersectional differences in expectations and standards to which candidates and office holders are held.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Kelly, a few weeks after the election, you had an op-ed in Forbes.
The headline, Election 2024 brings no increase in women's congressional representation.
In the piece, you note that net counts aren't the only indicator of success when it comes to progress of women in politics.
Walk us through some of the wins that, or some of those other factors and gains that women picked up in the November election.
unidentified
Sure, absolutely.
Yeah, when we talk about representation, as I was noting, you know, it isn't just a number.
So there are particular ways in which we saw more and different types of representation for different groups of women.
So for example, on the Republican side of the aisle where there weren't a lot of gains, we did see though the election of the first woman to the House from North Dakota, Julie Fedorczak.
So that's a state, right, that's going to have now a different perception of who's in office.
Sarah McBride became the first trans woman in Congress.
As we've seen, unfortunately in the news, there's been backlash to that by some of her peers in Congress.
But she's, you know, demonstrating the ways in which, I think, quite respectfully navigating this space and talking about and demonstrating the importance of her presence.
And we'll see that as policy debates, et cetera, continue.
We also had some firsts in terms of race and ethnicity.
The center, our center, is based in New Jersey.
We elected our first Latina woman to Congress, Nellie Poe.
In Oregon, the first black woman was sent to Congress.
So these are all gains when we think about the diversity of women's representation.
And then I would add one more thing, which is beyond the congressional level, we also now have three states that are at parity, meaning women are at or above 50% of the full state legislature.
While that's only three of 50 states, it's the first time we've only before had one state at any given time that's reached that level of parity.
So we're making gains both numerically as well as in the diversity of women serving in office.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Let's hear from Warren in Brandon, Florida, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Warren.
unidentified
Good morning.
Oh, just a quick comment.
I can appreciate what the guest is saying, and I do.
But when she mentions this last election cycle, it looks like the only thing that's standing in the way of women is women.
That's what it looks like to me, because it seems to me that women voted really overwhelmingly against their own interests.
This is who they elected.
It was women who put this guy in.
So you need to address that.
Who were those women and why they went for this guy as opposed to the Democratic candidate?
Kelly.
Yeah, I mean, I would just remind the caller that the largest percentage of support for Donald Trump was white men.
Men were more likely to support Donald Trump than women.
tracy shannon ▲ ● ▼
Women in every election since 1980 have voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic candidate.
unidentified
I think what the caller is speaking to probably is a particular subset of women, white women, and even more specifically non-college educated white women.
As we saw this cycle, white women overall continue to go for the Republican.
They have done so in every election for many cycles.
But when you drill that down even further, actually, college-educated white women have moved increasingly since the election of Donald Trump to the left in terms of their support.
So nearly 60%, getting closer to 60% of that group has voted for Kamala Harris.
So I agree that there are conversations to be had about which groups are supporting whom, but we do need to be very specific.
And that's true among men as well, to look at the idea that these groups are not monolithic in who they support.
And I would add that there is an assumption that women should just vote for women or that all women in terms of policy are pro-choice.
That's not true.
And so we allow for the same, we allow for the diversity of men's points of view, whether it comes to policy issues or who they vote for.
We don't assume men just vote for men.
And we just shouldn't do the same for women.
So it's not to say that we shouldn't have real conversations with women, especially in the case that you have candidates who have been blatantly misogynistic in their commentary and in their policy.
I agree with that.
But we should also recognize that women are not monolithic in their priorities, in their privilege, and in what they want to see in policy outcomes.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Jerry in New Jersey, Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Jerry.
unidentified
Yeah, hello.
Well, I listened to you, and I have a question, and I will ask it after my comment.
I'm a registered Democrat.
I voted for Biden in the primary, but of course he got pulled out by the Democrats, and they put Harris in and forced her down our throat.
And so we decided to go.
I went with Trump.
The question I have for you is twofold.
One, we have Republicans that are up like Democrats, Kelsey Gabbard.
And we have other, like it used to be, Sarah Palin and stuff like that.
Nobody was more critical of the women than the Democrats.
So you're not quite supportive of women the way you say.
I noticed that if it's a Republican, you go right after them.
If it's a Democrat, it's okay.
And the other question I have is, how proud are you or Bass?
How proud of you are?
Bath in California, the girl in Georgia that was going after Trump, who screwed up the whole thing.
These are all women in charge that are blowing it.
And who would you think could run as a woman in 2028 that could really beat?
Because at the rate they're going, Barbara War, I mean, Waters, and I can go on and on, Nancy Pelosi getting rich off these stock.
Who's going to run on the Democrat side?
Your Democrats are blowing it.
They're black.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Kelly.
unidentified
Yeah, so I just want to clarify, they're not my Democrats.
So we're a nonpartisan center.
I'm talking about, as I mentioned before, the successes for Republican women, Democrats, et cetera.
So just want to clarify that we do work to lift up women across party lines.
In fact, that's why we are so concerned about the divisions in terms of our disparities between parties.
In terms of the question about kind of individual women and the caller's assessment that they're doing a poor job, too often when we talk about women's political representation, fingers are pointed to one woman who did one thing or another woman who didn't do one another thing to say that therefore women's representation is not important or should not be valued.
It's interesting that we don't do the same thing often to men.
So we've had histories of men who arguably have not done a great job in government.
And I would not argue that that means we should have no men in government, right?
And so I think we just have to be very careful about these wide kind of spread claims.
And also among some of those women, I think we should look at the degree to which, again, they may be held to a different standard.
We know very little right now about Karen Bass's leadership through what is a current catastrophe, right?
We know about her historic leadership as one of the first black women speakers of the House nationwide, who had a really pretty stellar record.
She was successful in the U.S. House and from what we know, already successful in her role as mayor.
So we have to wait and see kind of how this will pan out.
And she should be held to the same standard as any other leader in terms of the criticism, but not then be painted as a representative of all women or all black women based on whether or not somebody thinks she did a good job.
So I think we just have to be really careful on our assessment, but also consider the ways in which we may be critical of women in ways that are not the same to the men who both are currently serving and have historically.
The caller asked one other question about the Democratic bench, I guess.
You know, who's kind of there going forward?
And I think this is a real question.
I'm sorry to punt this, but I think that this is actually a real question that the Democrats are going to have to grapple with, as are, by the way, the Republicans after Trump's term is over.
You know, who is really in line who can capture voters and for the Democrats who can capture voters who even Harris wasn't maybe able to capture this time?
There are no shortage of women.
There are lots of qualified Democratic women.
We have a record number of Democratic women governors who are serving who are often kind of on those lists, like Agression Whitmer or others who are currently holding office who are often put on the short list.
We have women in the Senate and the House.
Those are just some of the women that you might consider and start looking at as we look at their role and attempts maybe to travel the country over the next four years.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Let's hear from Diane in Manchester, Missouri, line for Republicans.
Good morning, Diane.
unidentified
Good morning.
How are you?
I have a caught.
I'm kind of upset.
I'm older than this woman, Kelly Yon, and she made some statements that are just wrong about women are more Democratic than are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.
I find that wrong because of my social group and people that are from all aspects of life.
You know, that's not correct.
And I also find that the Democrats have not put forward a candidate like that would be seriously considered.
I mean, Kamala Harris, forget that.
Even Hillary Clinton had more experience than Kamala, but she had a lot of baggage.
Now, you have to look at an individual.
Just because she's a woman, you can't just vote for her, which they were trying to do this past election.
Kamala Harris is black and a woman.
Black men have to vote for her, and women have to vote for her.
That's crazy.
You know, you have to vote for the qualification and the person itself, not what the Democrats tell you to vote for.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Kelly.
unidentified
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you, and I actually think most Democrats probably agree with you as well.
One thing that was really interesting in the Harris campaign that I actually got asked a lot about was why doesn't she talk more about being a woman and being a black woman and making history?
I think that you heard her from her mouth directly say, I don't take any votes for granted.
I'm not asking people to vote for me because I'm a woman or a black person.
So I actually don't think it's funny that people, there were people who said, oh, you're just asking people to vote for her because she's a black woman.
That was never the message of the campaign.
It's certainly not a message of organizations like ours who are saying, look, yes, you should value the representation of women, but that is not why you vote for somebody, right?
You vote for somebody because you think they represent the things that you care about.
What I'm arguing, and what I think the larger literature in terms of representation would argue is that at least in part, identity and lived experiences are part of the credentials that you bring to being a candidate.
So women may have some overlap with the lived experiences of the caller.
Now, Kamala Harris's experiences are going to be very different perhaps than the callers, maybe or maybe not, right?
But those are things you could look at and gender is just part and race is just part of that story.
And I would just follow up on the idea that I was presenting disinformation.
You can look at any data on partisan identity, again, for over the last 45, nearly 50 years, and it is consistently true that women in the electorate, maybe not in a particular community, but in the electorate, the U.S. electorate overall do identify overwhelmingly as Democrats.
So I shouldn't say over 50% of women are Democrats, and they are also more likely to vote for Democratic candidates.
So that's true.
That data is on our website if folks would like to see it.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
And Kelly, I will share some of that data with our audience.
There are numbers coming from your organization that look at women serving in Congress, the number of women serving in Congress to date.
When we look at the number of Senate, there have been 44 women who have served in the Senate.
That includes 27 Democrats, 17 Republicans, 377 have been in the House.
That is 252 Democrats and 125 Republicans plus eight non-voting delegates.
And that breaks down evenly for Democrats, for Republicans.
19 have served in both the House and Senate.
Again, it's 12 Democrats, six Republicans, and one Independent.
Also, want to note that one of the numbers on the website, when we look at those numbers, that when we look at women serving in Congress to date, it is 3.3% of all women in Congress.
We'll hear next from Yvette in Florida Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Yvette.
unidentified
Good morning.
Well, listening to this conversation, I just want to pass on my own experience with women these days.
And the ones that I've met in the military, for instance, here in Florida were so impressive.
I was so impressed with these women.
And also the young women in high school.
I've met some young women recently that I visited with who were very impressive as well.
And I think the white men are voting for the beat your chess guy because they're afraid of these women.
They're beating them out in law school and medical school from what I'm reading.
And I'm just saying, guys, you know, quit whining and compete.
It's just, you know, they want us over there in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, so they don't have to compete.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Yvette, we'll get a response from Kelly.
unidentified
Yeah, thank you.
I mean, and I really appreciate kind of looking to the next generation and the optimism that Yvette is bringing to the conversation.
When we look at activism and advocacy, a colleague of mine, Melissa Deckman, has written a great book on the politics of Gen Z and talking about high levels of mobilization among Gen Z and particularly among Gen Z women and even more specifically, Gen Z women of color who are really taking a lead when we look at protest politics and advocacy in all sorts of areas.
Environment, issues around safety and gun control, class-based arguments and efforts to look at greater equity in those areas, educational access, things like that, right?
Women, young women in particular, are really impressive in the work that they're doing.
It's not to say that young men aren't as well, but we are seeing even some gender differences in that level of engagement and participation.
And so it is true that, you know, the future is bright there in terms of seeing more women hopefully translate that advocacy into an interest and success in running for office and so that we can continue to see the gains in office holders.
And I think the other thing that the caller raises is what literature would talk about as kind of male fragility or masculine fragility.
Susan Faluti's book, Backlash, kind of speaks to this in some way, which is to say that when we see progress, whether it's gender progress, racial progress, et cetera, which we really have seen, often we confront a backlash to that.
And often it's based in a perception that my well-being or my privilege is under threat.
And I do think we're seeing that among some men, some communities of white people.
And it's something that Donald Trump in his elections has tapped into by saying, we'll go back.
We'll go back to when these groups had greater privilege and greater security and more traditional gender roles.
And so it is absolutely part of our politics of this moment.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Kelly, we're talking about the importance of women in elected office, but there's also a lot of women who work behind the scenes.
It was shortly after, just the day after the November election, that President-elect Trump named Susie Wiles as his chief of staff.
She'll be the first woman in that post.
Talk about the importance of women working in politics but in less visible roles.
unidentified
Yeah, I think it's really important.
Thank you for thinking about and pointing out the representation of women in unelected positions.
It's something that I've been really interested in when we think about congressional staff or other consultants, those who inform the politics of our moment, whose names we often don't know.
When we think about women's political representation, we also have to think about power.
And power can be defined in lots of ways, but one way is to think about how much influence do women have on outcomes in these political spheres.
So if you think of somebody like Susie Wiles, who had obviously a prominent role on the Trump campaign, will now have a prominent role in the White House, that's a lot of influence.
That's power, arguably more than maybe some women in the U.S. Senate.
And so we have to look at all the areas where women can gain political influence and power and try to, I would argue, encourage women to think about those roles for themselves.
So in addition to the type of high-level staff roles in the White House, you can be a legislative or congressional staffer.
In our system, lobbyists are very influential, and some kind of give lobbyists a bad name.
But we know that they're a source of information and influence for elected leaders.
So it's a place where women, if they care deeply about certain policy issues, might think about lobbying and advocacy as another way to influence outcomes.
When we look at the representation of women in these unelected roles, we've also seen persistent underrepresentation.
That's been true in the White House and high levels of leadership, cabinet leadership, even in the Trump administration of before.
And so we want to think about ways how do we kind of put a little more pressure on those who are selecting those staffs and selecting those appointees to consider diversity in that selection.
And I know that many will push back against that, but again, I think if you recognize the value of perspectives and lived experiences, you might see the value as well of encouraging more diversity across these unelected roles.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Let's hear from Juanita in Cincinnati, Ohio, Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Juanita.
unidentified
Good morning.
How are you?
We're Snowden.
It's very cold here in Cincinnati.
Before I say anything, I want to say, make a comment about the lady who's going to be Trump's chief of staff.
As far as I'm concerned, she's going to be another Mark Meadows.
So I'm not impressed at all.
Secondly, about Mrs. Harris, or Ms. Harris, can you imagine what the backlash would have been had in any way, shape, or form that she would say that she would rely on her race and gender to be elected?
Don't forget, a lot of black men did not vote for her either.
And thirdly, all you have to do, and I'm an old lady, so I can look, I can say it, all you have to do is look at the numbers over the years in Congress.
Women tend to bring to Congress the things that make houses or homes work.
Things like, okay, if you're taking care of mom and dad, who's going to take care of the kids?
Who's going to make sure that the gas in the electric bills are paid?
Who's gonna make sure that house taxes are paid, especially in these weird states?
I live across from a state, Kentucky, where half the state, oh, they went for Trump.
But by the way, half their counties don't even have a doggone a nursing home and half their hospitals have closed.
So the numbers tell why women over the years have become Democrats.
And we'll just have to see what happens in the next four years.
Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Kelly.
unidentified
Yeah, thank you for that point.
I think you stated it more clearly than I did in terms of the value of women's congressional representation.
And I just want to back that up with some interviews we did in Congress.
We did a book, my colleagues and I called A Seat at the Table, where we talked to over 80 women in Congress across party lines.
And one of the things they continually came back to when we talked about why does it matter, or we asked them, why does it matter that you're here, they often talked about exactly what the caller was talking about, which was we understand the distinct challenges of caregiving and running a household economically in terms of care responsibilities, being within a sandwiched generation where they're caring for elderly parents and kids.
And they would talk about how having those experiences and responsibilities in their personal lives really did influence what they brought to Congress.
So whether it be thinking about paid leave, which by the way, both Republicans and Democratic women have led on, just in very different, you know, they have a very different model for how you get there, but they still were leading on those questions or elder care issues, social security changes that would better address caregiving.
We see women leading on so many of those things, as the caller said.
So I do think there are ample examples of why and how it matters and that you can apply those across party lines.
And one other thing the caller mentioned in terms of, you know, how difficult it would have been for Kamala Harris to ever say, you know, vote for me or think about my race and gender in this, I think she's absolutely right that were that to be something she did say, the criticism would be she's playing the gender card or she's playing the race card.
In fact, you know, again, as the earlier caller noted, there was an argument she was, even though she never said those words.
So it is a constraint that you have as a candidate who represents very diverse identities from what we've always seen in office.
Whereas you have, you know, male candidates, white male candidates, Donald Trump repeatedly said, you know, of Hillary Clinton, she doesn't have the presidential look, right?
So he was very much playing into identity, but often we don't call it out as such when we assume the neutrality of whiteness and maleness.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
We have time for one last call.
We'll talk with Laura in Pennsylvania line for Democrats.
Good morning, Laura.
unidentified
Good morning.
I would like to say that, first of all, women are what runs this country.
Like if you think about it, like they're caretakers and givers.
And Carmela Harris, I felt so bad for her when she had to stand up there, excuse me, next to the speaker and have to say the numbers, that had to be so humiliating for her.
I was like, I felt so bad.
And also, Trump, okay, he hired women for certain jobs, but definitely national security.
We need somebody in national security that can run this country.
And she has no clue, absolutely.
He just hires women that he likes.
They have no experience.
And we are under siege right now inside our country.
You know, we need a woman that knows what she's doing.
If we're going to like the woman, it doesn't matter what she looks like.
It's the experience.
And that's what really gets me.
Like, I don't understand how the people don't see what he's doing.
And it's just like he's a circus.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Laura, we'll get a response from our guests.
We're running short on time.
Kelly.
unidentified
Yeah, I just want to echo the facts again that this is absolutely true.
None of this work and none of this argument is to, you know, say any woman, support all women regardless of their beliefs or their experience.
The argument that I would make, and that I think many of us make, and I think the caller's making, is women should just be held to the same standard.
So same criticism, same scrutiny over qualifications, experience, and perspective as their male counterparts, not higher.
And so if we do that, we should see more women in positions of power and influence in ways that can make positive outcomes.
And also, not all women are going to share the same position.
So that's why we want to see a diversity of women in office because we have a diversity of viewpoints and experiences and desires among women in the electorate.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼
Kelly Dittmar is the research director at Rutger University's Center for American Women in Politics.
You can find her work and others online at cawp.rutgers.edu.
Kelly, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.
unidentified
Thank you.
Up next, House debate on the Lake and Riley Act, named after a nursing student who was killed by an undocumented immigrant.
The bill passed 264 to 159.
And then President-elect Donald Trump's sentencing to an unconditional discharge in the New York State hush money case, in which he was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
And later, a discussion on the China-Russia relationship and how it impacts U.S. foreign policy and the rest of the world.
Next week on the C-SPAN networks.
The House and the Senate are both in session.
The House continues work on the Republicans' priority list of 12 bills focusing on border security and immigration policy.
The Senate continues work on the Lake and Riley Act, legislation to require Homeland Security Department officials to detain migrants for theft-related crimes.
Also, stay tuned to the C-SPAN networks for comprehensive coverage of confirmation hearings for President-elect Trump's cabinet nominees.
On Tuesday, Pete Hegseth, nominee for Defense Secretary, will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Wednesday, South Dakota Governor Christy Noam, tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security, will appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, nominee for Secretary of State, heads to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Also, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, nominated for U.S. Attorney General, will begin her confirmation hearings.
She'll testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee across two days, Wednesday and Thursday.
Watch next week, live on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
Also, head over to C-SPAN.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime.
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