Run like a Girl: Women Presidential Candidates throughout History
It’s no secret that in the United States, women face barriers to leadership — especially in the political realm. Women represent only 19 percent of Congress, 24 percent of state legislatures, and 12 percent of governors (and I’m sure you know that we have never had a woman president — of the country, at least.)
But that doesn’t mean women haven’t tried. Women have been running for president of the United States since 1872 — before women even had the right to vote. And this year, two high-profile women entered the race. Here are some of the women who have tried to crack the ultimate glass ceiling.
1. Victoria Woodhull
In 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to run for president. She ran with the Equal Rights Party, and her running mate was Frederick Douglass. A controversial figure at the time, she supported issues we take for granted today like an eight-hour workday and many social welfare programs.
2. Gracie Allen
Remember back in 2007 when Stephen Colbert filed to run for president in his home state of South Carolina? It turns out he was not the first comedian to come up with that idea. In 1940, comedian Gracie Allen (of the comedy duo Burns and Allen) ran for president on the “Surprise Party” ticket as a publicity stunt. She used her zany style of humor to make fun of the political process.
Gracie Allen: George, I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m running for president.
George Burns: You’re running for president? Gracie, how long has this been going on?
Allen: For 150 years. George Washington started it.
Burns: But in the entire history of the United States, there’s never been a woman president.
Allen: Yeah isn’t that exciting? I’ll be the first one.
In a time of depression and looming war, Allen provided levity and received several thousand write-in votes.
3. Margaret Chase Smith
In 1964, Margaret Chase Smith became the first woman presidential candidate for a major party. As the first woman elected to both the House and the Senate, she said that she received many letters encouraging her to run. However, she was not encouraged by the party establishment. At her campaign announcement in front of the National Women’s Press Club, you can hear the audience laugh as she describes one of the reasons she was told not to run: “It is contended that as a woman, I would not have the physical stamina and strength to run. And that I should not take that much out of me for what might even conceivably be a good cause, even if a losing cause.”
Like this post? Stay tuned for more! We’re featuring a story about women running for president in the upcoming Spring 2016 issue of Outlook magazine.
4. Shirley Chisholm
“Unbought and Unbossed” was the slogan for Shirley Chisholm’s run for the presidency in 1972. Black women have long been an integral yet unsung part of the political process. Chisholm was a pioneer as the first African American woman elected to Congress and the first woman of color and first major-party black candidate to run for president.
5. Carol Moseley Braun
Following in Chisholm’s footsteps, in 2000 Braun became the first African American woman U.S. senator to run for president. Braun’s candidacy was often questioned, but she always responded that her record was as strong as those of her fellow candidates.
By running for the highest office in the country, these women have set the stage for many more women to follow. At AAUW, we are encouraging the next generation of Victorias, Gracies, Margarets, Shirleys, and Carols to step up and lead.
Youngest woman elected to House gets sworn in as Petersburg lawmaker
Congratulations, Delegate Aird, on breaking the glass ceiling!
Women across the word, like Lashrecse, are breaking barriers. We’ll continue to advocate for women in political leadership, including through
Elect Her, our national program to train young women to run for office.
Happy birthday to Zora Neale Hurston!
When Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, African Americans, particularly African American women, faced restrictions and unfair treatment that limited their opportunities. But Hurston was too driven, intelligent and resourceful to be held back — she took the few opportunities she had, and made others appear when needed. Today she is acclaimed for books that include Their Eyes Were Watching God and Mules and Men; however, there are other aspects of her story that are less well-known, but just as interesting.
Chris Rock: If Jennifer Lawrence Were Black, 'She'd Really Have Something To Complain About'
Chris Rocks hits on an important fact: The gender pay gap affects all women, but it doesn’t affect all women equally.
Black women were paid 63 percent of what non-Hispanic white men were paid in 2014. That means it takes the typical black woman nearly seven extra months to be paid what the average white man took home back on December 31. That’s even worse than the national pay gap for women of all races, 79 percent, as reported by AAUW’s research.
Think about how that adds up in the course of a career, and we’re talking about losing a daunting chunk of change over a lifetime.
The Challenges of Being in Academia from a Black Feminist, and How She Has Addressed Them
Navigating academia as a woman of color researching black feminism — a widely misunderstood topic — has not been without its challenges for
Sherie Randolph, an associate professor at the University of Michigan.
Randolph, who researched black feminism, shares how she has found ways to succeed as a woman of color and feminist in academia.
1. Don’t rely solely on publications; build personal relationships, too.
For many people of color in academia who have decided to focus on controversial or less popular areas of study, the old adage “publish or perish” is not always a sufficient guide. In Randolph’s opinion, it is also important to establish and maintain a wide circle of relationships in your department. This allows colleagues to better understand and appreciate your work.
In Randolph’s experience, this is especially important because “sometimes even when you publish in the established journals and with the presses that the mainstream academy approves of, your work on feminism, queer theory, [or similar subjects] is often not fully understood or prized by your colleagues.” This misunderstanding can impact how your research is received, what you are paid, and how your courses are valued.
2. Create and find accepting spaces.
Finding an accepting space where you can build relationships, get advice, and share experiences can be crucial to personal and professional growth. One such space that Randolph found and has utilized over the years is the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. She says that the organization is a great place for any woman of color to start their search. “They have a great team that helps you continue to write and research when you are often one of the only persons of color in your department or field, or when your research is not fully understood and appreciated by your department or university.”
3. Find supporters!
Randolph notes that having genuine supporters of your work is invaluable. She proactively garnered support for her work from other colleagues at her university, including AAUW alumna Tiya Miles. These supporters “read my work, advocate for me, and encourage me to have a balanced life both inside and outside of the field.”
The support that may have started it all, Randolph says, came in the form of an AAUW American Fellowship. “Without AAUW’s support I would not have finished [my] dissertation on time” or crafted a strong enough study to enter the job market competitively. “It was a great honor to receive the AAUW fellowship,” she goes on. “It gave me a win at a time when I needed to feel that other scholars appreciated and understood my work and that I was not alone in valuing black feminism as a field of study.”
Read the full blog post.
Being a Woman in STEM Isn’t Easy, But Here Are 4 Tips from a Google Employee
Women are still woefully underrepresented in the STEM fields. Representation tends to be even lower for black women, who make up approximately 1 percent of the engineering workforce and 3 percent of the computing workforce.
Given these numbers, it is too rare that we come across minority women who have managed to push past the challenges and remain in STEM fields for the majority of their professional lives. Keita Wangari, a 2009–10 AAUW Community Development Grantee, is a new Google staff recruit.
Wangari’s journey to working at a top-notch tech company like Google has not been an easy one. How did she do it? It came down to four fundamentals.
1. Get over the imposter syndrome.
Wangari has been no stranger to feeling out of place or having her presence questioned. When she landed her first engineering job as a 20-something with a degree in airway science, two male engineers at the company refused to work with her. The two men were subsequently fired and, despite the incident, Wangari stayed on at the company as an engineer and even put programming skills she had acquired as a student to work by decreasing the debugging time of one of the company’s core programs by 80 percent. While this work was outside her job description, she went the extra mile to show that she indeed did belong at the company and, most importantly, that she had a lot to offer.
2. Drown out the inner critic.
Wangari says it’s important to learn to operate with our inner critic, understanding that it does not necessarily go away. “It’s a challenge,” she admits. “[Women] speak up less because we feel like we have to be right all the time — because we feel like we have to have the answers all of the time.” She had to learn to stop “mentally obsessing” about what she did or did not say in a meeting, turn off the voice inside her head, and move on. When she can’t turn off the voice in her head, it’s about “learning to operate with it.”
3. Be creative and persevere.
Wangari’s story shows that perseverance and creativity pay off. Several times in her life, she has had to employ her technological skills to get her to the next step. One such instance happened after her husband had been laid off from his job. Strapped for cash and having taken a few years off from corporate work to be a stay-at-home mom, she was forced to look for creative ways to support her family. So she started to research the websites of local mom-and-pop shops and plan site redesigns. Then, computer in hand, she would visit the locations, present the newly designed website, and offer a flat fee well below market level. Her ingenuity paid off and allowed her to keep her children in their school.
4. Continue your education!
Although Wangari recalls attending “one of the worst high schools” growing up, she always felt that she needed education to open doors for her. When she returned to corporate work after four years of being a stay-at-home mom and working from home, Wangari’s salary wasn’t what it once was and her tech skills were outdated. So she decided to pursue a master’s degree online in human-computer interaction while working full time — a degree she was able to pursue thanks to her AAUW Career Development Grant. Over the course of her master’s program, she raised her salary by $20,000 by convincing her supervisors to let her implement some of what she was learning in her classes on the job. She also used her own vacation time and funds to attend Grace Hopper conferences just to have the opportunity to network and improve her technological skills. She recalls, “During the thesis phase of my program, there were bleary-eyed mornings where I told my children I was up all night researching search interfaces and justified it by telling them, who knows, maybe one day Mommy will work at Google!”
Read the full blog post.
Humans Will Probably Walk on Mars Before Women Get Equal Pay
Here are just some of the things we might have before women achieve equal pay: flying cars, long walks on Mars, teleportation, hoverboards, household robots. Houston, we have a problem.
Based on two different projections — the pace of change since the 1960s and the pace of change in the past decade — women won’t see equal pay until 2059 or 2276, respectively. That’s because progress in closing the gender pay gap has stalled in recent years. The result? It could be more than 250 years, or nearly three generations, until women get fair pay.
There’s a problem when futuristic wish lists become more realistic than the prospect of equity. You can help close the pay gap by donating to AAUW this #GivingTuesday.
Altogether, the gender pay gap costs a typical woman at least $400,000 over the course of her career. That’s no small chunk of change. Because of the pay gap, women are more likely than men to live in poverty, struggle with the burden of student debt, and experience economic insecurity in retirement. The harm caused by pay inequity runs deep, especially given that women make up a record 40 percent of U.S. breadwinners.
According to AAUW’s latest research, women working full time, year round are paid only 79 cents for every dollar men are paid. The pay gap is even worse for mothers and women of color. African American women are typically paid just 63 percent of what white men are paid. Hispanic and Latina women face the largest gap, making 54 percent of white men’s earnings. For these women, it’s arguably more likely that their grandchildren will live with robots or walk on Mars than have fair pay.
For ourselves and our children, it’s time to pick up the pace in the fight for fair pay.
Founded in 1881, AAUW has been studying the gender pay gap since 1894, when we first analyzed the pay of college-educated women. Through the years, we’ve continued to conduct groundbreaking research on pay equity as well as advocate for policy and legislative action to close the pay gap. AAUW members were in the room when President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law in 1963. More recently, AAUW members worked tirelessly to help pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was signed into law in 2009. It was a start, but the pay gap remains. And as trends show, it’s sticking around — that is, unless we act.
Equal pay shouldn’t be a dream for our great, great, great granddaughters. Agree? Lend a hand this #GivingTuesday!
Luckily, there are many things employers, individuals, and governments can do to help speed up the process, including supporting AAUW.When it comes to policy, we must continue to advocate for strong pay equity legislation, including the long-stalled Paycheck Fairness Act, as well as encourage employers to support flexible work schedules and conduct job audits to ensure fairness. AAUW also educates the public about the harm of the pay gap, and we hold national workshops to empower women to hone their salary negotiation skills. In September, we announced a collaboration with Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and the Mayor’s Office of Women’s Advancement to bring AAUW’s Work Smart salary negotiation workshop to half the working women in Bostonover the next five years. These efforts are critical elements as we work to close the gender pay gap.
It’s been an uphill battle, but progress has occurred. We’ve made strides since the 1930s, when the federal government actually required that its female workers be paid 25 percent less than male workers in the same jobs. Back then, American women likely felt that the prospect of receiving a paycheck equal to a man’s was the stuff of science fiction. But groups like AAUW have helped lead the charge in policy and cultural shifts. Today, we have the power to make fair pay a reality — if we all take action and chip in.
Buckle up those jet packs. Equal pay, here we come.
A Timely Reminder This Thanksgiving - Native Women Have to Work 9 Extra Months to Make the Same Salary as White Men Made Last Year
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: There’s a pay gap between women and men, and that gap is even wider for women of color. But here are a few facts you might not have heard before: American Indian and Alaska Native women are paid just 59 cents for every dollar white men are paid. For Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, that number is 62 cents.
Native women are a notoriously understudied group. According to Catherine Hill, AAUW vice president of research, the relatively small size of their population is at least partially responsible for the lack of information. American Indians and Alaska Natives make up just 2 percent of the U.S. population, about 5.2 million men and women. There are just 1.4 million natives of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. In contrast, there are 200.9 million people in the white population and 45 million in the black or African American population.
The lack of data means that, for now, we can’t definitively say what is causing this gap, but we can hedge a few guesses. Native people face disproportionate rates of unemployment, poverty, and violence, as well as limited access to education, and women tend to bear the brunt of discrimination. Yes, there’s a pay gap between native men (who are underpaid) and native women.
There is some good news. Native American women are now going to college and holding jobs at higher rates than ever before, and we know that education and good jobs help increase earnings — though they don’t eliminate the wage gap. So for now, we’ll mark September 8, and keep agitating for some real change.
Read more → bit.ly/nativewomenpay
Help close the gender pay gap→ bit.ly/AAUWgive
Our #TheReal10 campaign is calling out the gender pay gap. And the fact that it’s worse for women of color.
The U.S. Treasury has announced that the new $10 bill will have a woman on it. But there’s still a significant pay gap between men and women, and we want more than just symbolic change.
Who needs ghost stories? There’s nothing scarier than real-life gender inequality.
Research shows that stereotypes and gender bias are largely to blame for keeping women out of leadership positions. Many states have yet to elect a woman governor or woman Senator, and only two women of color have ever served in the U.S. Senate. If we want change, it’s imperative that we train and empower women to run for office.
Who needs ghost stories? There’s nothing scarier than the gender pay gap.
As AAUW’s research shows, women of all walks of life experience the gender pay gap, and it’s even worse for women of color. At 63 cents to the dollar, that earnings ratio means it takes the typical black woman nearly seven extra months to be paid what the average white man took home back on December 31. Hispanic and Latina women face the worst pay disparity, getting paid only 54 percent of what white men get paid.
Read the full blog.
The 10 Scariest Pictures You’ll See This Halloween
Forget ghouls, goblins, and graveyards — these 10 statistics on women’s equality reflect a reality far scarier than whatever comes out to haunt on Halloween.
Read the full blog.
❤️ Can you say #MondayMotivation? Channeling these beautiful words by #NCCWSL15 honoree, Elizabeth Acevedo.
P.S. Don’t forget to save the date for #NCCWSL16, our national conference for college women leaders, taking place June 2-4 at the University of Maryland, College Park. Learn more at nccwsl.org
How would you like to have your paycheck cut in half? That’s the case for many Latina women in the United States.
Today is #LatinaEqualPay Day, the symbolic day when Latina’s earnings “catch up” to men’s earnings from the previous year.
Thanks to the gender pay gap, Latinas are paid 54 percent of what non-Hispanic white men are paid. That means it takes Latinas almost an entire extra year of full-time, year-round work in order to be paid what the average white man took home by December 31. Think about how that adds up over a lifetime, and we’re talking about losing a substantial chunk of change — change that could have greatly aided Latinas and their families.
Read the full blog post.
Happy #NativeWomenEqualPay Day? Not really.
Today, September 8 marks Native American women’s equal pay day, the day that the wages of American Indian and Alaska Native women catch up to the money white men were paid last year. (It took about nine months, if you’re counting.)