Why are There so Few Women in U.S. Politics? Evaluating Campaign Fundraising as a Barrier to Women Running for Office at the Congressional and State Levels

One of the most prominent and stagnant problems evident in American government today involves the failure of the American population to elect representatives that resemble the population as a whole, in respect to gender. According to the 2000 Census, the majority (50.9 percent) of the population of the United States is female. Contrastingly, the percentage of women in the 108th Congress of2003 is 13.6. At the same time, American democratic phrases continue to rely heavily on boastfully egalitarian terms such as "equality," "E Pluribus Unum," and "a government of the people, by the people, for the people." Yet this rhetoric remains far from reality. White men continue to dominate every sphere of politics, most noticeably from the top levels down.