Michigan Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jennifer Granholm (c), in Detroit's 2002 Labor Day parade.
Photo from Jim West.
Women in Politics in the U.S.
1917, three years before women were granted the Constitutional right to vote, the first U.S. congresswoman was born. Currently, women hold 73 (13.6%) of the 535 seats in the 108th U.S. Congress, and this number is the highest in history. Both houses have almost the same percentage of women: fourteen (14%) out of the 100 seats in the Senate are held by women and women hold 59 (13.6%) of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Of these 73 women in the U.S. Congress, 24.7% are women of color, with eleven African American women and seven Latinas. However these women are all in the House of Representatives. There have been a total of twenty-nine women who have held or are holding cabinet or cabinet-level appointments in U.S. history. Frances Perkins, appointed by President Roosevelt as Secretary of Labor in 1933, was the first woman to serve as a presidential cabinet member. Currently in the Bush administration, the posts of the Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Interior, National Security Advisor, and Secretary of Agriculture are held by women.
Click CHARTS to see the Statewide Elective Executive Women between 1969 and 2003.
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