Jodi Enda
If you’re a woman in America, Washington, D.C., is, apparently, the place to be. Women in the nation’s capital have more power and influence than their sisters in any of the 50 states. They have more political and economic heft, better health outcomes and a greater say in policies that affect their lives.
Women in Alabama and much of the South, meanwhile, have little power or influence, and that is reflected in their everyday existence. They are poorer, less educated and receive less support from public institutions than women who live in places with a reputation for more progressive politics.
The state-by-state rankings of women’s power and influence, released this month by a new organization called Future Forward Women, are not surprising. We know the link between power and success, and we know that Southern states tend to bring up the rear when parts of the country are measured against one another on.…just about anything.
But the rankings do illustrate the wide gulf between women who have more control over their stations in life and those who do not. And they provide a glimpse into what is working — what helps women — and what does not.
Here are some findings:
- The places where women have the most power and influence are, in order: Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Washington state, Vermont, California, Oregon, Colorado and Connecticut.
- The states where women have the least amount of power and influence are, from worst to slightly less bad: Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Indiana and West Virginia.
- The same pattern emerges when you look at women’s economic power: Washington, D.C., tops the list and Mississippi brings up the rear.
- Likewise, a health and wellbeing index ranks women in Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont first. Tied for last place are Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.
If you’re looking for a pattern beyond geography, consider this: Every one of the top-10 places in which women have the most power and influence backed Kamala Harris in the presidential election last year, while each of the bottom 10 supported Donald Trump. There’s a little variation in terms of health and wellbeing (I’m looking at you, Colorado), though it’s slight.
The irony is that women in states in which they have the most power and influence are almost certainly not feeling like winners right now, as President Trump and Elon Musk upend policies and slash programs that help them and their families. Diversity, equity and inclusion practices, medical research on diseases that predominantly harm women, anti-harassment laws, the Education Department, environmental regulations and, potentially, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, either are dead or on life support.
That is especially true in Washington, D.C. This deep-blue city — 92.5 percent of voters preferred Harris to Trump — has long been a GOP target. But the stakes are much higher now. The administration already has fired thousands of federal workers who live in and just outside the capital, though a federal judge on Thursday ordered it to reinstate many of them. And it is threatening to close a number of federal buildings downtown.
House Republicans, meanwhile, passed a budget plan that would prevent the mayor and city council from spending $1.1 billion of its own taxpayers’ money, forcing midyear cutbacks in public schools, in the police force and elsewhere. District residents have no voting members of Congress – their lone non-voting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, has represented them on Capitol Hill for more than three decades. And Congress has the power to overrule local legislation.
So how is it that D.C., a lowly non-state, ranks above any of the country’s actual states in power and influence for women?
C. Nicole Mason, the president and CEO of Future Forward Women, explains that women fare better in places that have progressive policies designed to help them.
“The public policies that we looked at, from paid sick leave to sexual harassment laws, to pay transparency, to child care supports and subsidies — when we look at all those things together, we see that there is a connection, a dotted line, to those policies and where women are doing better or have more power and influence,” Mason told me.
Washington, D.C., has plenty such policies, sharply contrasting with conservative bastions, especially in the South.
“In states that are ranked highest, women have higher earnings, higher levels of educational attainment, are less likely to live in poverty and are more likely to hold political office,” she said. “Conversely, when we looked at the bottom states, all those things were missing. Women were more likely to live in poverty, they had fewer earnings, lower levels of educational attainment, and were least likely to hold political power and influence in the state.”
There are a couple of asterisks when it comes to political power, and they are called Florida and Texas. In both of these large, deep-red states, women rank high as measured by voter turnout and the number of political positions they hold. Only women in Washington state and Massachusetts rank higher; Utah comes in last.
And that tells us something, too. When I asked Mason about Florida and Texas, which rank 25th and 45th, respectively on women’s power and influence, she said that “while women might be represented in higher numbers in state legislatures, that doesn’t necessarily translate into women and family-friendly policies in the state. So when we think about building women’s power and influence, it’s not just about having any woman in the role, it’s about having the right women in the role.”
Future Forward Women, which aims to build women’s power and influence in the U.S., used a comprehensive — if not complete — index to come up with its rankings, including women’s levels of education, poverty, earnings (on their own and as a percentage of men’s), unemployment, numbers in political office, proportion of the vote, insurance coverage, maternal mortality, gender-based violence, sexual harassment and several public policies affecting families.
“We can look at D.C. as a microcosm, an example of what happens when you do right by women and families and you really work to create…public policies that work for everyone, not just the few,” Mason said.
“And I think I feel like this is special, especially important given the most recent attacks on D.C,” she added. In addition to cutting the federal workforce and the city’s budget, Republicans have introduced legislation to strip the District of its limited “home rule,” which permits residents to elect a mayor and city council.
Those of us who live in the capital know that women — and men — who gravitate to Washington do so, to a great extent, because they want to accomplish something, because they care about their country, often because they care about one cause. They have the greatest percentage (by far) of college degrees in the country, the highest average income (coupled with a high cost of living), and a progressive city government long headed by a female mayor. Still, here in the country as a whole, there remains a considerable income gap between white women and women of color, Mason noted.
The task now, she said, is to close gaps among women of all races no matter where they live, to lift all women out of poverty, to give all women a bigger voice.
“We believe that when women have more power and influence, their lives are better,” Mason told me. “We see better public policy outcomes for women and families, and we are a part of conversations….Things are not just happening to us.”
