Back More
Salem Press

Table of Contents

From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues

Y

Year of the Woman

Political observers labeled 1992 the “year of the woman” because of the gains women made in winning seats in state legislatures, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. The number of women elected to state legislatures increased from 1,369 to 1,527. The number of women serving in the U.S. House of Representatives increased from 28 to 47, and the number in the U.S. Senate went from four to seven. Democratic women dominated the increases, with a net gain of 16 women in the House and two in the Senate.

More women ran in 1992 than had previously run for Congress in any one election. Many of them said that watching Anita Hill testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas’s confirmation had prompted their candidacies. In addition, several House members had been accused of abusing their privileges in the House’s bank and had written hundreds of checks that created overdrafts in their accounts. Another factor that contributed to the increase in the number of women being elected to office was the gender gap.

“Calling 1992 the Year of the Woman makes it sound like the Year of the Caribou or the Year of the Asparagus. We’re not a fad, a fancy, or a year,” United States Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) responded.

See also: Congress, Women in; Gender Gap; Hill, Anita Faye; State Legislatures, Women in

References: United States Senate, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/year_of_the_woman.htm (accessed August 2, 2012).

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
"Y." From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, edited by Suzanne O’Dea, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_1028.
APA 7th
Y. From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, In S. O’Dea (Ed.), Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_1028.
CMOS 17th
"Y." From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, Edited by Suzanne O’Dea. Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_1028.