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Of course, before women can win elections and change the government, they need to run. Though women make up a more significant share of national and state lawmakers than ever before — the US Congress includes nearly 15 percent more women than it did in 1989, according to 2015 research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research — there’s still a long way to go. Only 19 percent of members of Congress and 25 percent of all state legislators are female. Since the 2010 congressional elections, we’ve has actually seen the first net decrease in the percentage of women serving in Congress since the 1978 midterms. Only six states have female governors.
That looks particularly stark in comparison to countries like Rwanda, which has a Parliament that’s 61 percent women, as well as Sweden, South Africa, Angola, and Cuba, which all surpass the U.S. when it comes to women in office.