Kelly Dittmar will talk about why female representation matters, now more than ever, at the Collingswood Book Festival.
The cover of "A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen's Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters," illustrates a striking reality.
There are not enough women representing the people of this country in Congress.
And that fact is shown in sharp relief with a photo taken of the 114th Congress, on which the book is based. The only color in the illustration is of the women in that congressional class — and it's clear that far too much of the photo's subjects are depicted in shades of black, white and gray.
There were just 108 women serving as U.S. representatives, senators and nonvoting delegates in the 114th Congress, which served from 2015 to 2017 and on which the book is based.
That number has barely inched upward since. Women, even in their greater numbers, still only represent about one-fifth of all congressional representatives, even though they account for just over 50 percent of the country's population.
That's not a partisan position, says Kelly Dittmar, a Rutgers–Camden researcher and one of the book's co-authors. Both parties fall short of full representation of women, she said, and while incremental progress has been made with each successive congressional cohort over the past several decades, that progress has been painfully slow.
"We can't make policies that affect women disproportionately without having representatives who can speak to it directly," Dittmar said this week in her Camden office.
"We need representation that can speak directly to the issues that are personal to women."
Dittmar, who co-wrote the book with Kira Sanbonmatsu and Susan J. Carroll, will appear at the Collingswood Book Festival on Saturday with former New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio to discuss "Politics: Past, Present and Future" at 11 a.m.
As the bitter fight over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh rages, many believe his confirmation hangs in the balance among three senators: Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Maine Republican Susan Collins.
Other potential swing votes: Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, and Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat from North Dakota who on Thursday announced she would vote against Kavanaugh's nomination.
That's three female senators in play — women whose opinions may determine the fate of a nominee in the face of sexual assault allegations.
The book centers on conversations Dittmar and her fellow researchers had with women long before Kavanaugh opened up a chasm in our national conversation that, in many cases, fell along gendered lines. But those conversations now seem all the more relevant given the key role a few women senators play in an ever-more partisan Congress.
Through many of the interviews with 83 women serving in Congress, representing a diverse array of states and viewpoints, took place before the 2016 election, Dittmar and her fellow researchers found common themes among them: a stronger sense of collaboration; an impulse to be a voice for the voiceless; and especially a sense that women prioritize getting things done over making a name for themselves in politics.
"Women see the costs of running (for Congress) are high, both financially and personally," she noted. "So they want to see the benefit — and that means making a difference in policy."
The authors had a goal in mind, and it was not to influence voters, Dittmar said.
Most scholarship on women in Congress centered on qualitative data: how many of them there were, relative to past and present congressional classes; how many bills they sponsored or advanced; where they came from and what parties they identified with.
The data were there. The voices weren't.
In talking to women in Congress, Dittmar and her colleagues got a more nuanced view of why women choose to serve, the challenges they face, the ways they work together, and the ways in which they differ.
There are more Democrats in the book than Republicans, but that's an extension of the numbers, not any ideological bias, she said. Democrats, for a host of reasons including a stronger infrastructure to reach out to potential female candidates, have more women representatives than the GOP.
"We didn't just try to be bipartisan," she said. "We wanted to tell the right story."
Women belong in Congress, not on the sidelines, Dittmar said. And they need to be there in greater numbers.
"We need women in positions of power — not just protesting or testifying before Congress. They need to be there so they can vote on policies that impact them and their families. They need to be there to share their stories."
The Collingswood Book Festival takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday along several blocks of Haddon Avenue.