This month, Emily’s List Australia’s long campaign for better representation of women in politics officially turns 18. A birthday that happens to coincide with the same month the United States elected 100 women to Congress for the first time in history.
In its 18 years, Emily’s List has supported 300 women through political campaigns and had 160 of those women elected to parliament.
“If Emily’s List were a young woman rather than an acronym, this would be an incredibly significant birthday,” Emily’s List National Co-Convenor Tanja Kovac told Women’s Agenda.
“Given that we are only just entering adulthood at 18, our achievements are prodigious. We got our first Indigenous woman elected to parliament at age 5 and our first female Prime Minister elected at age 14.”
Still, Kovac believes the fact the United States Congress reached triple digits for the first time this month should be celebrated with caution.
“I think the increased representation of women is a significant achievement for gender equity, but my concern is that when you have women elected who want to kick down the ladder for other women then this is probably more of a problem than it is a milestone.”
Kovac said that while many Emily’s List women have been elected to Congress, there are others who will be potentially damaging to the change the group is working towards.
University of Technology Sydney research fellow and social commentator Eva Cox also said increased numbers are not enough to constitute a milestone.
“Reaching a particular number alone is not significant. We need to ask not how many women we have in Congress, but how many feminists we have in Congress; how many women we have elected who want to make change for women.”