How can we get more women elected to public office?
Raising Ms. President, an upcoming documentary, explores why girls and women aren't putting themselves out there -- and how we can change that.
"Women in particular ... tend to overvalue the qualifications they think you need to run for office," Anne Moses, president of Ignite, a program that aims to build political ambition in young women, explains in the trailer above. "And they tend to undervalue their own qualifications."
The clip also features interviews with young girls, who discuss their hesitation about going into politics. "It's just a lot of pressure," a young woman named Jessica notes.
A recent report found that young women are not socialized to think about politics as much as young men and are less likely to be encouraged to run for office. This may explain why women hold only 18.1 percent of the 535 seats in Congress or why just 17.4 percent of mayors of cities with populations over 30,000 are female.
In April this year, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand emphasized the importance of women running for office:
When women are at the table, a broader agenda is discussed, an agenda that looks out for all Americans, particularly those who are voiceless. Women’s voices are not better than men’s, they’re different and the broader perspective that we bring often leads to better results. That’s why I’ve been such an advocate for more women to run for office and make their voices heard.
Hopefully, awareness-raising documentaries like "Raising Ms. President" and outreach programs like IGNITE can help bring more women to the table.
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