Happy Friday! Welcome to our Media Round Up. Each week we’re collecting and sharing our favorite gender + politics stories. Here’s what caught our eye this week:

19 states have never had a female governor

Faith Karimi, CNN

With Kathy Hochul’s swearing in as governor of New York just after midnight on Tuesday, the total count of women governors in the United States rose to just nine. There have been a total of 45 women governors in United States history, and there are still 19 states that have never been led by a woman. No Black or Native American woman has ever served as governor, and there have been just three women of color to hold the post.

There are a number of reasons that contribute to the lack of gender parity at the gubernatorial level—including that male party leaders have tended to recruit from their own networks; that voters hold notions that women are better suited for collaborative positions such as part of legislatures; and that entrenched gender stereotypes about what a leader looks like persist.

Read the fully story here.

 

Hochul Appoints 2 Women to Key Posts in Her Cabinet

Dana Rubinstein and Luis Ferré-Sadurní, New York Times

Kathy Hochul made history as New York’s first ever woman governor this week—she also chose two women as top aides. The highest-ranking appointed position in New York, secretary to the governor, will be held by Karen Persichilli Keogh. Elizabeth Fine, who has served as legal counsel to myriad political figures including Attorney General Janet Reno and President Bill Clinton, will be Governor Hochul’s counsel.

“In a statement, Ms. Hochul said Ms. Keogh and Ms. Fine would help her ‘turn the corner on the pandemic and serve the best interests of New York, whether it’s defeating Covid, getting more people vaccinated, or strengthening our economy.’”

Read the full story here.

Harris shifts focus to pandemic response in hard-hit Vietnam

Alexandra Jaffe, AP/Boston Globe

Vice President Kamala Harris is currently on a trip through Southeast Asia, and this week she became the first United States VP to visit Vietnam. While there, the Vice President has turned “her focus to the coronavirus pandemic and global health during her visit to Vietnam, a country grappling with a worsening surge in the virus and stubbornly low vaccination rates.” Vietnam’s vaccination rate is approximately 2%. While there, the Vice President launched the regional office for the Centers for Disease Control.

Read the full story here.

 

Cori Bush tests the bound of what an activist turned lawmaker can accomplish

Marianna Sotomayor, Washington Post

Congresswoman Cori Bush was evicted for the first time in 1999, and it was one of many times that she experienced homelessness. Bush has talked about being evicted, and about being a survivor of domestic violence—and it was those experiences that caused Bush to successfully push for the recent extension of the eviction moratorium. The Congresswoman, who became involved in politics in 2014 following the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, uses the phrase “defund the police”—drawing attacks from Republicans and discomfort from other Democrats. “The controversy over the defunding movement encapsulates the challenge facing Bush, 45, as she attempts to bring her activist background and style to the legislative realm in service of poor communities, like those found in her St. Louis-based district, which she says Congress has long neglected or actively discriminated against for decades. When should an activist’s zeal give way to a legislator’s finesse or the search for a compromise and the best deal possible?”

Read the full story here.