U.S. part of global wave of women running for office, says advocate

Longtime gender equality advocate Gwen Young asserts that the rise of women in running for office in U.S. is part of a wave of women being elected across the globe.

Young, a director at the Wilson Center, told “Rising” on Monday that she isn’t worried about prominent female world leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel stepping down from their positions. In October, Merkel announced that she will not seek reelection when her term expires in 2021. 

“I don’t think it concerns me as I see demographics changing, I see people very interested in running for office … as men step down, there will be other women that will step up,” Wilson told Hill.TV co-host Krystal Ball in response to a question over if the resignation of prominent female leaders like Merkel could upend progress. 

Young predicts that the “wave that we’re seeing in the U.S. is part of this global wave.” 

Prior to the midterms, Young said the U.S. didn’t stack up well with other countries when it came to women’s representation in government, but Young said this is improving after midterms results.

Some dubbed the 2018 midterms as the “Year of the Woman,” following a record number of women running and being elected into public office. At least 124 women will be heading to Congress in January 2019.

Despite these historic numbers of women heading to Congress in the U.S., only 22 percent of government positions are held by women worldwide, according to Women in Public Service Project.

Gwen’s Global Women’s Leadership Initiative seeks to change that by increasing the number of women holding office across the globe to 50 percent by 2050.

“What we want to do is include everybody at the table … we also want to change the way global solutions are forged and this does matter, because women are not only half of the population, they are half the people that ride the bus, they’re half the people that educate the children,” she told Hill.TV.

— Tess Bonn