Women In Politics Magazine: Pulling the Curtain Open by Women In Politics

Pulling the Curtain Open:

How Suffrage Still Relates to Voting

August 2022

A WORD FROM OUR WRITING LEADER: Ella Stillion Southard I’m overwhelmed when thinking about what’s on the line at the voting booth in November. As a women interested in politics, the first that comes to mind is abortion rights. Although the American people cannot choose who sits on the highest court in the land, they can choose what legislators believe in codifying reproductive rights for birthing people. Votes can determine the degree of dedication Congress members have for climate legislation, gun regulation, expanded healthcare access, and more.

However, at least half of Congress already advertises themselves as dedicated to such issues. Yet, Roe v Wade was still overturned, and significant measures to address other economic and social disparities have not been accomplished since the previous election.

This paradoxical situation the U.S Government offers has led to criticism over the instinctual widespread push by leaders for people to vote in the upcoming election. In 2020, 66.8% of the voting population listened, and they voted! It resulted in the largest turnout in the 21st century, according to the US Census Bureau. Yet, no member of Congress or the President could prevent the Supreme Court from negatively changing the lives of millions of citizens. This post-Roe v Wade discourse has welcomed the question: does a vote even matter?

It may seem like more now than ever, a singular vote towards a candidate that appears dedicated to the above issues is too insignificant to cast. After the loss of significant reproductive rights, at the mercy of 5 individuals, I found myself believing that the governing system truly is ineffective and powerfully imbalanced.

However, the reality is that incrementalism is the foundation of the American political system. Is it the most rewarding? Maybe not. Is it an excuse for the lack of action by our leaders? Absolutely not. Reforming the incrementalist system is also on the line at the voting booth (issues like reforming the Electoral college and eradicating the filibuster). However, in order to get a shot at addressing reproductive rights, voting rights, the climate, housing crisis, etc., we have to play into the reality of incrementalism. A singular vote matters because they join thousands of other votes, which can and will determine the outcome of an election.

After all of this logical rationale, it is still easier to be cynical and not participate in politics. Yet voting is not equivalent to supporting a broken political system. It’s okay to deplore a system, yet engage with it for the sake of hoping for change. You can recognize that voting is not the only solution to addressing the issues plaguing our current political climate and the foundation of American politics, yet still vote. Because even if you believe (like I sometimes do) that your singular vote will not prevent inhumane legislation or decisions from being made, not voting at all certainly guarantees that your vote is ineffective. The system itself is oiled by imperfect humanity – from the founders to the egotistical, greedy politicians ruling today. Although imperfection is a natural trait of the human condition (despite how evil it can manifest), so is change. Progress is possible not because of the existence of the Electoral College, or democracy itself. The existence of democracy does not guarantee the onset of progress, humans do. The suffragettes did not have the support of democracy or the government. Black suffragettes certainly did not have the support of most of the white suffragettes, nor the government. Female voters in particular have set the precedent for fighting for change — an equal chance to make their voices heard — and the fight is certainly not over.

Therefore, in order to address the incredibly unequal, inefficient political system in the U.S, we have to keep dedicating ourselves to the knowledge that change is human, and that we are a part of the system. The government does not progress effectively without a mobilized citizenry that tries to choose dedicated candidates. There is a lot on the line in November. Harmful legislation and ideology will proliferate if the majority in Congress is returned to a faction of politicians who are more interested in profiting off of their corporate donors, making it more difficult for poorer communities to vote, ignoring the climate crisis, prioritizing guns over children lives, defunding public programs and education, weaponizing the police, and much more. Many of the issues are perpetuated because of a political system pioneered and sustained by faulted human beings, but lots of hard work by the human orientation for compassion and justice will combat it. We hope you enjoy this issue where our writers explore the problems with the prevailing inequalities in the U.S, but also how important voting is. It can’t solve everything, but it’s an adequate ingredient.

With love,

Ella Stillion Southard

Table of Content s The South Carolina Heartbeat Bill and Roe v. Wade BY: CAROLINE HOGUE

An International Climate Crisis: Climate Change BY: KYLIE RICHARDSON

Women Candidates in the U.S. Midterms

BY: GRACE MARTIN

The Queer Suffragettes BY: SARAH ELGAMAL

How Voter ID Laws Suppress the 19th Amendment BY: AISLING KELLY

The Rise and Fall of Boris Johnson BY: PELUMI ADEKUNLE

The South Carolina

VS.

Heartbeat Bill

Roe v. Wade As the United States grapples with the controversy of Roe v. Wade being overturned, so do individual states. The burden of creating laws that either hinder or allow abortion access will go to state legislatures. Including the state of South Carolina, my home state. Many are wondering what will happen on all sides of the political spectrum. Protesters for bodily autonomy are enraged outside our beautiful State House in Columbia, SC. Anti-choice protesters line the entryways of the state’s abortion clinics beaming with celebratory cries. Both sides know of South Carolina’s Heartbeat Bill; one side is defending it with their lives, another using their voices to express their disappointment and hurt.

By: Caroline Hogue

The Heartbeat Bill is a little confusing at first read. One who has not studied policy, and/or how the people writing it can manipulate it, may have to rack their brain and strain their eyes for multiple readings until they grasp the concept. I know I did.

The SC Heartbeat Bill was first proposed in 2021 and gained support quickly, but could not be passed under post-Roe policies that had not yet been overturned. It was proposed as a law quite similar to Texas’s Heartbeat Bill with a few exceptions. The Heartbeat Bill in South Carolina states that a pregnant individual must have an ultrasound at six weeks and if there is a heartbeat slightly recognized, the individual is banned from receiving an abortion even the pregnancy is resulted from rape, incest, or the pregnant individual’s life is at risk (scstatehouse.gov). While some activists and legislatures have designated South Carolina’s law as a more ‘progressive’ pro-life law because of its allowance for abortions in the case of rape or incest, this is simply not true.

Although the SC Heartbeat Bill is not a trigger law, a law that is written and set aside for specific circumstances, it is taking on many controversial and disconcerting traits of one. Before Roe V. Wade was overturned, there was hope for women nationwide and in South Carolina. The Heartbeat Bill was being blocked by appeals courts and by the protection of choice under the Roe V. Wade Supreme Court precedent. There was a limited possibility the bill could be passed until the conservative majority in the State House had a chance to slide it in under the June 24th, 2022 overturn of Roe by the Supreme Court. Making it an impulsive move of power to further the pro-life agenda.

The Heartbeat Bill in South Carolina has been passed in the shadow pattern of many other abortion bans across the United States. This law doesn’t just hinder a woman’s right to choose whether they want to carry a pregnancy to term depending on their situation in life, it makes it harder for them to know whether they are even pregnant before their window of time to receive an abortion is over (six weeks). According to University of California San Francisco Medical Center, only one in three women know they are pregnant at six weeks and only one in five know from the period of 7 weeks up to 14 weeks. There are many different reasons for this. According to a 2019 CNN article, many teenagers have little to no sexual education in their schools resulting many unplanned teenage pregnancies, followed by the fact that many women grow up being told incorrectly by healthcare professional’s that they are infertile and then find themselves in an unexpected pregnancy even after contraceptives. Evidently, most of the reasons for women receiving abortions is that the government, healthcare, and school systems have misguided them, rather than them being reckless and irresponsible, a common narrative advanced by the legislators putting abortion bans in place. The South Carolina lawmakers and their Heartbeat Bill being one of them. A bill that, pro-life activists call progressive to justify the lack of it’s ethics, gives a shockingly short and near impossible window for women to find out they are pregnant and to keep up with in order to save the women of our state from poverty, stress, trauma or more importantly to save their lives. Not to mention that many birthing people may not even know the bill has passed or what their options are due to its very rapid adoption in the South Carolina State House.

In light of all these abortion bans and pro-life vs pro-choice debates and controversy across the country, birthing individuals and allies must continue to advocate in our counties, states, and across the nation for the rights of all people in need of reproductive care to choose, and, ironically, our lives that are unequally invalued in the eyes of the government. We must make our voices heard, our opinions recognized, and our causes equal.

An International Crisis:

ClimateChange By: Kylie Richardson One of the top issues of the world; a never-ending problem that has struck every country, in both similar and different ways. This includes the ongoing crisis of plastic pollution, food waste, and the loss of our environment’s biodiversity. Due to human impact, things are only getting worse.

Plastic pollution. Why do we need to fix this problem? Marine litter and plastic pollution is a leading cause of climate change, an extraordinarily dangerous issue that most commonly and negatively impacts marine life. You can find billions of pounds of plastic circulating in the beautiful oceans of our planet. It was even calculated that plastic will outweigh all the fish in the sea by 2050 if plastic pollution continues at the rates it is currently at. And why is this? Humans. The causes range from careless litterers, industrial activities, waste dumping, as well as storm water runoff. The leading issue of plastic pollution in bodies of water is the ingestion of plastic. Animals such as sea turtles and seals commonly mistake floating plastic for their food, eating tons, which will easily kill them, as a result of internal damage or choking. Another deadly effect is entanglement. This is a direct cause of plastic pollution because “the vast majority of entanglements occur in manmade materials of which plastics are the most common.” Therefore, this directly affects climate change because of sunlight or heat. The hotter the Earth gets, the quicker the greenhouse gasses can break down plastic into “methane and ethylene, increasing the rate of climate change,” according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. As this cycle continues, it only becomes more of a global tragedy for our Earth, oceans, and marine life.

Another issue affecting climate change is food waste. Food production requires energy, water, harvesting, and labor. It also demands transportation and packing. The food that is wasted, and is sent to landfills and dumps to rot, results in an increasing production of methane. This is a greenhouse gas, which contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone, a hazardous killer, and a dangerous air pollutant. Food waste also demands the use of more natural resources such as water, energy, and land, which comes from most consumer-facing businesses that supply food to their customers. A leading explanation for food waste is overproduction in supermarkets and restaurants, improper storing, and sometimes, lack of care. Although a stretch, the only way our world can begin eliminating this problem is through better planning as a whole, and coming up with different strategies to reduce overproduction, and spread awareness to educate people on the dangers of food waste. Finally, the loss of the world’s biodiversity is an aspect of climate change. The loss of biodiversity stems from multiple issues. The most devastating being, yet again, human impact. For example, deforestation, industrialization, illegal poaching and damaging protected lands and habitats. Destroying ecosystems limits the natural ability for nature to limit and attempt to control greenhouse gas emissions. According to the European Commission, “[ecosystems] currently absorb roughly half of manmade carbon emissions. Biodiversity and ecosystem services help us to adapt to and mitigate climate change,” therefore, demonstrating the crucial role of diverse ecosystems and its inhabitants. Not only is climate change affected by the loss of biodiversity, but it’s a cycle. The less biodiversity, the worse climate change gets, which only leads to the decreasing of global biodiversity. For example, because of environmental destruction, it becomes increasingly difficult for Earth to regulate its temperature, which inevitably causes a rise in global temperatures. The warmer the Earth gets, places such as Alaska cannot maintain proper ecosystems for the occupants, which leads to endangerment of species even more than currently. Plastic pollution, food waste, and loss of biodiversity are all significant contributors to almost half a century of the rising issue of climate change. And it’s all because of humans. Carelessness, ignorance, and lack of respect for the “so-called green Earth” is damaging. It is crucial for one to do their part in making Earth cleaner and safer for its animals, plants, and humans. That means, pick up litter you see on the streets, properly dispose of your garbage, spread awareness against corporations that dump their waste in the ocean. If we want to save the Earth, we have to start step by step, and every contribution, regardless of how big or small, is a useful helping hand. We need to protect our land and protect its inhabitants. Go green!

Women Candidates in the U.S. Midterms

By: Grace Martin

After a record-breaking number of women ran for political office in the United States in the 2018 midterm elections, the 2022 midterms are predicted to break those numbers yet again. There are more women than ever running for statewide offices, with about 65 candidates in races to become state governors. With so many female candidates, some seeking reelection and others new to the ballot, it is expected that new gains in representation will be made.

According to Rutgers, in the last 20 years, the total number of women in the U.S. Congress has increased from 72 to 147. So, in this century alone, it has doubled. However, women still only make up about 27% of Congress, and yet make up 51% of the nation’s population.

There are several key races this year with notable women candidates. In Florida, Democratic candidate Val Demings is running for Republican Marco Rubio’s Senate seat, and openly speaks out against his “political games.” Though she has been trailing in recent polls and Florida is growing increasingly Republican, if she pulls ahead, she will become the state’s first Black female Senator.

Cheri Beasley is also seeking a seat in the Senate. She hopes to take Republican Senator Richard Burr’s seat in order to maintain the Democratic Party’s current margin. Similarly, if elected, she will become North Carolina’s first Black female Senator. Currently, she is locked in a tight race against Republican Ted Budd. According to a WRAL poll, 44% of people say they would vote Beasley, while 40% report they would support Budd.

Vying to be Governors, both Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Stacey Abrams will make state or national history if elected. Sanders would be Arkansas’ first Female Governor, while Abrams would be the United States’ first Black Female Governor. Sanders will run against Democratic candidate Chris Jones. Interestingly, both of these candidates being elected will make Arkansas history; Sanders would become the state’s first Female Governor and Jones would become the state’s first African-American Governor. In Georgia, Abrams remains the only Democrat on the ballot. She will face Brian Kemp, who she narrowly lost to in 2018. However, since then, Abrams has become a national political figure and has been credited for Georgia’s blue flip in the 2020 elections. The United States has never elected a Black Female Governor, and Abrams could very well be the first. Kemp currently leads the polls with only 5 percentage points more than Abrams.

Women voters will also play a huge role in the midterms. Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, says that “women voters are going to be the deciding margin.” Many of the primary issues of the midterms, such as abortion and inflation, will motivate women to show up to the polls in higher numbers. The economy is typically a main priority among women when deciding who to vote for. Historically, due to wage gaps, women have had less savings after retirement and less access to pensions in general. Due to widespread concern, they have called for politicians to address the issue and find solutions. These concerns have not changed. Currently, in a poll done by AARP, 52% of women ages 50 and up say that they are unhappy with the economy, especially with the rising cost of living.

Though there is widespread dissatisfaction, many women are undecided on who they will vote for. In fact, 65% say they will not decide until the weeks leading up to the election. Lake explains this is due to all voters, Democratic, Republican, and Independent, being disappointed with politicians across the board. Women 50 and up are practically evenly divided, with 45% supporting Democratic candidates and 44% supporting Republican candidates. Many believe the work is far from done. According to UN Women, “data shows that women are underrepresented at all levels of decision-making worldwide, and achieving gender parity in political life is far off.” Nevertheless, women, whether running for a position or voting at the polls, will play a crucial role in this year’s midterms.

The Queer

Suffragettes 1848, The Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention – the beginning of the most powerful movement for women in the United States. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized this movement and were avid pioneers in fighting for the grave injustices and prejudices women faced in the 19th century. Over 300 women showed up to this rally, owning their sex while simultaneously writing history. This fight for rights would last for decades; finally ending on August 26, 1920. Among the women fighting, many of them were part of the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s time for history to stop sweeping these women under the rug for not only their sex – but their sexuality as well.

By: Sarah Elgamal

Suffragist Mary Dewson, born on February 18, 1874, played a major role in the 1932 Presidential campaign by attracting an abundance of female voters to the Roosevelt ticket. In addition, Mary introduced the idea that women belonged at the highest and most powerful governmental levels, and moved the focus of women's issues from the state and local levels to the national level. She had romantic relations with a woman named Polly Porter, whom she had met at college in 1900. The couple went on to live on a dairy farm and nurtured a relationship of fifty-two years. Mary was far from being the only queer sufferagist, for many of these women who were fighting for representation and equality were rebels living nonnormative “rebellious” lives.

African-American writer and suffrage Field Organizer Alice Dunbar-Nelson, who wrote in her diary about the “thriving lesbian and bisexual subculture among Black suffragists and clubwomen,” was an example of these types of women. Alice herself was bisexual and had relationships with numerous women throughout her life; including with fellow journalist Fay M. Jackson and artist Helene Ricks London– both of whom she wrote about in her diary. Fighting for both African Americans and women's rights, Alice was paving the road toward an equal future for all individuals. In 1928 she became the Executive Secretary of the American Friends Interracial Peace Committee.

The suffrage movement itself downplayed the queerness within it, a defensive strategy that contributed to the erasure of queer suffragists. Leaders of the movement Anna Howard Shaw, and Carrie Chapman Catt argued that the movement would be more effective if it was perceived as palatable to the public eye. This was done by overcompensating and emphasizing “normalcy,” and meant that suffragists who were in seemingly happy heterosexual marriages and mothers — or young, beautiful, and affluent — became the faces of the movement. However, this led to turmoil and intense friction within the movement. It became clearer to the people that queer women needed to be at the forefront of the movement. For these women, the freedom to choose whom and how they loved was tied deeply to the idea of voting rights and independence. Queer women understood that married heterosexual women and men would not fight for them and that instead, they needed to represent themselves.

How Voter ID Laws Suppress

the 19th Amendment

By: Aisling Kelly

On a faithful summer day in August of 1920, the 19th Amendment, an article prohibiting the denial to vote based on sex, was officially ratified and added to the United States Constitution. However, this alteration did not just happen out of the blue. Instead, the 19th amendment was brought about by over seventy years of fighting through a movement known as Women’s Suffrage. Commencing in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention and ending in 1920 with the 19th amendment, the Women’s Suffrage Movement evolved into one of the most widespread extensions of voting rights in history.

Although the movement began on the ideology that women deserve the right to vote because they are equal to men, it eventually shifted once a new generation of activists emerged and the key component of their reasoning was marriage. Around the 1890s, women across the nation started arguing that they deserve to vote because of their differences with men. At the time, women were already viewed as less, so they decided to use this to their advantage. Rather than fighting for gender equality, many women in the United States used their domesticity and conformity as a means for strengthening the possibility for voting rights. Although not all, a great number of women claimed that they would help push whichever political agenda their husbands wanted, resulting in more male supporters for Women’s Suffrage. At the time, marriage was a key factor in women’s right to vote, but as years passed, it unfortunately grew into a prevention mechanism.

Over one hundred years have passed since the ratification of the 19th amendment, and women throughout the nation are able to exercise their voting rights. In fact, a whopping 82 million women voted in the 2020 presidential election alone! However, even this extreme number does not account for all of the women who should have been at the polls. According to a 2020 census, roughly 168 million people living in the United States are women, and only 35 million of those are under 18. So what happened to the other 51 million women that did not vote? An immense amount of factors prevent women from voting, such as citizenship, lack of transportation, disabilities, and maternal responsibilities, but an important component in voter suppression amongst women is the relationship between voter IDs and marriage.

In order to vote during a federal election in the United States, one must register to vote. However, 36 states take voting a step further by having voter ID laws, or methods of confirming one's identity through showing a specific ID in either an absentee ballot application, a mail-in vote, or at voting polls. The type of ID necessary to obtain a voter ID card varies by state, but overall these laws may prevent people from having the ability to participate in their democracy, which is a right, not a privilege.

Many states with voter ID laws are extremely strict, as they require government IDs, rather than allowing simpler forms of identification, such as bank statements or utility bills. Government IDs include passports, military IDs, and driver’s licenses, among others, which are difficult for some to obtain. According to the National Organization for Women, an estimated 11 percent of eligible voters do not have a government ID.

Voter ID laws are restrictive for all groups of people, but they disproportionately have a negative effect on women, usually due to marriage. A common practice amongst married couples is one person adopting the last name of the other. In most heterosexual relationships, this means the woman changes her last name to that of her male partner. About 90 percent of women who marry men change their last name, and this name is then used for voter registration. However, this also means the name on many forms of identification for women is different from the name they use to register. The Brennan Center for Justice reports roughly one third of women have names on their citizenship documents (birth certificates, passports, etc.) that do not precisely align with their current name, usually due to their new married name. As a result, many women are turned away from receiving voter ID cards, which, as previously mentioned, are required in 36 states to vote, because the different names on their chosen ID and their voter registration are considered false identification.

While married names in general are the primary reason as to why women are targeted, speculation indicates there are also political motivations behind married names and names at birth being considered ‘false’. Historically, women have often voted in favor of the democratic candidate as opposed to the republican one in presidential elections. The Center for American Women in Politics reveals that 57 percent of women voted for President Joe Biden, the democrat, while 43 percent voted for Donald Trump, the republican. Many believe Republicans choose to enforce strict voter ID laws, especially towards women and minorities to prevent their states from voting blue. Although not much solid evidence exists to back this claim, the idea is not entirely bizarre. Even though women have the right to vote in accordance with the United States Constitution, voting rights continue to be at risk due to harsh and restrictive voter ID laws. In order to gain the right in the first place, many women claimed that they wanted to vote for the candidate their spouse wanted to fill the position in question, meaning they used their marriage as a method of political advancement. However, in modern day, marriage is a leading factor for voter suppression, not motivation. In order to truly honor those who fought for the 19th amendment, we must fight to eradicate the discrimination caused by voter IDs, so that women all across the nation have the ability to exercise their well-deserved rights.

The Rise and Fall BY: PELUMI ADEKUNLE

Following a wave of resignations from his parliamentary cabinet, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to step down from his position, with many Members of Parliament and the public withdrawing their support and questioning Johnson’s integrity. When just 3 years ago, Johnson was considered the Conservative Party’s ‘Golden Boy’, many struggled to comprehend how the politician could not last the typical 5-year term. What caused the downfall of Boris Johnson’s political career? Boris Johnson began his premiership on the 24th of July, 2019. He was widely accepted and loved by the British public for promising to get a Brexit deal secured. Brexit is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. He was even named the ‘Brexit Messiah’ by tabloids for promising to do what his predecessor, Theresa May, could not. Although Johnson delivered on his promise, the problems began soon after… 2020 saw the rise of the global pandemic, Covid 19, which devastated the UK. The disease was responsible for up to 1,5000 deaths and 40,000 hospitalizations per day (in the UK). Subsequently, Johnson heavily stressed the importance of reducing social contact and urged the public to not make any unnecessary journeys. “You should not be meeting friends”, Johnson stated in a public announcement ‘If your friends ask you to meet you should say no’. These pivotal instructions were given as the UK was put into its first lockdown, forbidding any form of in-person social gathering no matter how small or large.

When this was brought to public attention over a year later in November 2021, there was a public outrage. At first, Johnson, as well as other MP’s denied allegations of any parties happening during lockdown. Following a police investigation,in which he was found guilty, Johnson admitted to and apologised for his actions. This was known as the Partygate Scandal and led to a nationwide distrust of the politician.

During this difficult time, Johnson and other conservative MP’s hosted twelve parties and/or large social gatherings, some even taking place at the Prime Minister’s personal place of residence. This broke the Covid restrictions and guidelines put in place by those very same MP’s. During a time when Covid restrictions were so heavy that many struggled to visit their critically ill relatives in hospital, Johnson decided to throw multiple parties, completely disregarding the British public.

Johnson had always been criticized for the way the coronavirus disease was handled. Many MP’s believe the UK wasn’t put into lockdown early enough, resulting in the deaths of over 180,000 people in the UK, one of the highest death tolls in Europe. When advised to put the country into lockdown by a fellow MP, Johnson allegedly responded “No more f*cking lockdowns, let the bodies pile high in their thousands”. Johnson had previously mentioned his antilockdown beliefs as the British economy worsened during the pandemic. This angered the public, as Johnson clearly demonstrated that he valued economic activity more than British lives. Johnson’s reluctance to put the country into lockdown affirmed his money-first mentality, which is an aspect the Conservatives have been criticized for by the opposition. These words showed a complete and utter lack of care to many members of the public. They did not want a prime minister that would exchange their health, safety, and wellbeing for economic prowess.

Conservative MP, Chris Pincher, resigned after admitting to groping two men in a bar. Pincher already had allegations of misconduct prior to his job in government, yet was still hired. This led to mass criticism as many found it absurd that given the severity of Pincher’s behaviour that he would be considered a suitable candidate for office. Johnson claimed he had no idea of Pincher’s past and told other MP’s to pose as an alibi. When news broke out that Johnson had actually been briefed on Pincher’s allegations and lied to both the country and the MP’s, the little support Johnson was left with, vanished. With 60 ministers resigning in just a few hours, there was no way that Johnson could sustain his position for much longer. Johnson had to resign. On the 20th July 2022, Johnson gave a farewell speech to the MP’s in the House of Commons, ending his speech with ‘ Hasta la vista, baby’. Whilst it was definitely a unique resignation speech, ending his premiership on a light hearted positive on note. Many struggle to forget the chaos and destruction that followed Johnson everywhere he went. With scandal after scandal, his absence will be seen as a triumph by many.

Founder and Co-Exec. Director

Co-Exec. Director

Rebecca Joseph

Katherine Bronov

Walnut Creek, CA | 16 years old

Philadelphia, PA | 18 years old

We are the co-executive directors of Women In Politics. WIP was founded by me (Rebecca) in 2020 during the start of the pandemic. I am a high school junior from the Bay area and felt that when I first joined the Speech and Debate team at my school girls like myself were underrepresented. I very quickly realized this was not only the case at my school but also in the government on all scales. That was how Women In Politics was born. I (Katherine) am a freshman in college and joined WIP from the very start, back in 2020. I have been passionate about politics since the start of high school and I had searched for organizations and clubs that interest me but found nothing until Women In Politics (WIP) caught my eye. WIP is a very special organization and fascinatingly the first of its kind. Now, almost 2 years later we are insanely grateful to lead this amazing team and for all that we have accomplished. We hope you keep following our journey and we thank you for your support!

Please enjoy this issue!

Magazine Manager Christine Corry

Sacramento, CA | 17 years old I’m Christine, the magazine manager at Women in Politics. My passion for political involvement started very young, and ever since my eyes were opened to the political world, I have searched for new opportunities to have my voice heard. Finding Women in Politics has allowed me the opportunity to have my political voice expressed, and to uplift other youthful voices in the political sphere. I am constantly inspired by the magazine team for all of their passion and hard work. I feel that Women in Politics is making constant strides towards a future which equally represents women in the political field and it is an honor to be a part of that change. Thank you for journeying with us to that future! I hope you enjoy this issue!

Ella Stillion Southard Athens, GA | 17 years old

Cedar Roach

Dallas, TX | 18 years old

Christine Corry | Katherine Bronov | Adithi Varakantam | Soha Mahapatra

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