Pennsylvania does a bad job of electing women. Why?

On Tuesday, Joanna McClinton was sworn in as the first female speaker of the Pennsylvania House.

My first reaction was: Finally.

Because when it comes to women in politics, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia have made a pretty poor showing.

We simply don’t elect many women to office. In a recent Inquirer Live chat with feminist writer Rebecca Traister (who is from our area), this was the message that stayed with me long after the interview was over.

Women represent more than half the population of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, yet we have never had a female U.S. senator, or female governor. Philadelphia has never had a female mayor, and has had only one female president of City Council.

Of the more than 1,000 people who have represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. House, only 12 have been women — three of whom got there because their husband had been chosen for the job, and he died before his term ended. Nearly 60 women have represented California in Washington (a bigger state, but still).

Up through 2018, Pennsylvania’s state legislature was among the bottom 12 states in terms of female representation. Historically, when it comes to women in politics, Pennsylvania has been “really, really behind,” Traister told me.

Out of 1,000 U.S. representatives, only 12 have been women.

It’s not like this in other regions. Of the 10 largest cities in the United States, all but Philly and New York have elected women as mayors. Fifty-nine women have served in the U.S. Senate since 1922; there are 25 there now. Connecticut voters elected its first female governor in 1975; 48 women have led 31 other states in the years since (including just over the bridge in New Jersey). Right now, Michigan has a female governor, secretary of state, and attorney general.

However, we’ve made some progress in recent years: This session, roughly 31% of the people serving in the General Assembly are women, the most in state history (we’re now ranked 29th in terms of women serving in state office, the highest we’ve ever been). A Pennsylvania state senator is set to give birth this month, the first to do so while in office; in January, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court swore in the first female chief justice; and Summer Lee became the state’s first Black congresswoman (she called the ceiling “cement,” not glass). And check out the Commonwealth Court: Out of nine judges, only one is a man. The president judge is also a woman.

Of course, ours is not the only state that has struggled to elect women. But there are a few distinctive factors about Pennsylvania that can make it harder for women to gain office.

» READ MORE: Philly has had 99 mayors. Could we elect the first woman this year?

For one, Pennsylvania has two strong parties, which act as “negative gatekeepers” when recruiting candidates, Dana Brown, executive director of the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics at Chatham University, told me recently. The Democratic and Republican Parties “ask themselves: What does viability look like?” Historically, that’s been white men, so they are often recruited and backed for office. In states with open primaries — where people can vote for candidates outside their registered party — and states with less strong political parties, these barriers to women holding office become weaker, Brown said.

Another sticking point is that Pennsylvania, unlike most other states, has a full-time legislature, thus offers competitive salaries. “Men want those jobs,” Brown told me. Pennsylvania is one of the states with single-member districts, she added, where one legislator represents each designated area, and that can make it harder for women to win elections. New Jersey, in contrast, has multimember districts, where voters choose more than one candidate for each region to represent them in state office; when voters can pick multiple candidates, they tend to be more open to electing women to at least one of those positions, Brown said.

Some research also suggests that donors contribute more to male candidates, which can definitely tip the scales. Attorney Melissa Hart is one of the 12 women (and the only Republican) who has represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. House; she said that when she ran for governor in 2022, the only pushback she got about her gender was from donors. “Certain individuals that I dealt with throughout the campaign were definitely not going to support me because I’m a woman,” she told me. Of course, most of the people holding the political purse strings are men. “As long as women aren’t the biggest donors, then women probably aren’t going to get the most money,” Hart predicted.

Party dynamics also have strong influence in Philadelphia, Gwen Snyder, a local activist, told me: The city can be very parochial, giving local factions of political parties a big say over who is chosen to represent the party, and any unconscious — or conscious — bias against women will stop them from throwing their weight behind a female candidate.

Some of these political “machines” are fading in strength, Snyder said, which may create an opportunity for women to step in. “It’s a moment that’s really exciting in terms of progressive organizations that do make a point of backing women and people of color. They see that opportunity and are making the most of it.”

But the details matter, she cautioned — many of the prominent roles in campaigns go to men; if a particular candidate wins, the members of those male-dominated campaign teams will also get positions in the new administration.

How can we make sure women’s voices become more represented in local and state politics?

To Brown, the best intervention is education. Her organization’s program “Ready to Run” provides women around the state with training for political office, including how to run a campaign and work with political parties. “Leadership can be learned,” she said. Political parties must also make “intentional efforts to recruit women and people of color into the party,” especially when it comes to endorsements, Brown added.

Voters don’t have to wait for political parties to do the work. I’d like to challenge Pennsylvania and Philadelphia voters to look past our own unconscious — or conscious — bias when it comes to picking leaders. If someone “feels” like a viable candidate, ask yourselves why — is it because they look like our leaders from the past (namely, men)? We can fight against those instincts.

Hart told me she is encouraged by the recent increase of women in our political ranks, particularly in the state legislature. “We have to keep putting really qualified women out there,” Hart said. “Not just because she’s a woman, but [because] she’s going to be really good.”

A democracy is supposed to represent the people, so it should look like the people. All of them. Come on, Pennsylvania: Let’s show the nation that our city and state aren’t stuck in the past, and elect more women to political office.