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:

 

There are only 8 women governors. Here’s how two plan to fix that.

Barbara Rodriguez, The 19^th*

With Kathy Hochul assuming the position of Governor of New York, there are now only nine women governors in the United States. Women are vastly underrepresented in the gubernatorial position due to several factors—two being gubernatorial races receive less coverage than federal ones and women incumbents face better-financed challengers than men incumbents. Wanting to have more representation at the gubernatorial level of government, Governors Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Kate Brown of Oregon chaired the Women Governors Fund, “… an account through the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) – which will support Democratic women, gubernatorial candidates,”.

Read the full story here.

 

The August Jobs Report Shows Exactly What ‘She-Cession’ Means

Liz Elting, Forbes

The COVID-19 pandemic led to record high rates of unemployment not only for the country, but especially for women. About 16 months into the pandemic there seemed to be a glimmer of hope as women held 70% of new jobs reported. However, the persistent Delta variant has thrown yet another wrench into the economy and for the month of August women only held 11.9% of new jobs reported. Between daycare growing increasingly difficult to find and school closures due to rising cases, the responsibility of childcare mainly falls on women who are then forced to choose between work and child supervision.

Read the full story here.

 

Wu and Essaibi George will advance as top candidates in historic race for Boston mayor

Emma Platoff, Boston Globe

In a historic first, there are no white men in the running for Mayor of Boston. After the preliminary voting on Tuesday, Boston residents selected former Boston City Councilors Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi-George as the final candidates for Mayor of Boston. For the first time in Boston’s two hundred years in politics, the mayor will be a woman, person of color, and a mother.

“The two candidates are both daughters of immigrants, mothers of Boston Public Schools students, and at-large city councilors who have experience competing for votes in every Boston neighborhood. Yet they represent the two poles of the political spectrum on display in the historically diverse preliminary field, and they hit the stump Wednesday offering up dramatically different tones and visions for the city.”

Read the full story here.

 

Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Changed the Supreme Court, and the Country

Linda Hirshman, PBS

“But they were sisters in law. Ginsburg has said a thousand times how glad she was that O’Connor was there to greet her in 1993. And how lonely she was after her colleague retired 12 years later. It was an unlikely pair that came to nod at each other from the highest tribunal in America, as they continued the work of transforming the legal status of American women.”

The legacies of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruther Bader Ginsburg are indisputable. Coming from two completely different backgrounds, former Supreme Court Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg helped pave the way for women in politics, and supported each other in their own ways.

Read the full story here.