Last week, Kathy Hochul was sworn in as New York’s first woman governor, ascending to the position from the lieutenant governorship following the resignation of Andrew Cuomo. CAWP has updated our resources, including our Women in Statewide Elective Executive Office 2021 and History of Women Governors pages, to reflect this change. Some data highlights:

Watch Governor Hochul’s first address to the state here and read CAWP Director Debbie Walsh’s op-ed about the challenges and opportunities Hochul faces.

Last week was Women’s Equality Day, marking the 101st anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Since 1964, women have voted in higher numbers than men, and they’ve done so in higher proportions since 1980. Over the past two election cycles, women have dramatically increased their representation in state legislatures and the United States Congress, and, for the first time in history, a woman now serves as vice president of the United States.

Despite all this progress, however, our new research series – the CAWP Women, Money, and Politics series – continues to show that, in one area of political participation, women persistently lag their male counterparts. When it comes to political donations, women are still outpaced by men. In this ongoing project, CAWP Senior Scholar Kira Sanbonmatsu and Research Associate Claire Gothreau examine campaign finance from both a donor and recipient perspective, and their findings thus far show an opportunity for women to expand their political participation as donors. Read the first two reports in the series: The Money Hurdle in the Race for Governor and Money Matters in the Fifty States.

Want to learn more about the history of the women’s suffrage movement? Find a great number of CAWP resources about suffrage and the century of women’s political progress that followed at our 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage page. And for two fantastic book-length examinations on the struggle for voting rights, read Marjorie J. Spruill’s fantastic One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement and Martha S. Jones’ Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All.  

Congratulations to Elise Stefanik on the birth of her son last week. Stefanik becomes the 11th woman to give birth while serving in Congress. In 1973, Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke was the first member of Congress to give birth while serving in Congress. Her daughter, Autumn Burke is now a member of the California State Assembly. Tammy Duckworth gave birth twice, once while a House member and once while in the Senate, becoming the first and only woman to give birth while serving in the Senate. In addition to Duckworth, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Jaime Herrera-Beutler have given birth multiple times while in Congress. For a full list of the women who have given birth while serving in Congress, head to the U.S. House of Representatives' History, Art, and Archives site.