Year of the Woman
The "Year of the Woman" refers to the significant political milestone achieved in the United States during the 1992 elections, marked by a dramatic increase in the number of women elected to Congress. In this election, the number of female representatives in the House rose from thirty to forty-eight, while the Senate saw an increase from two to six women, including Carol Moseley-Braun, who became the first African American woman elected to the Senate. This surge was influenced by various factors, including historical underrepresentation of women in Congress, retirements, and congressional redistricting, which created many open seats.
The 1992 elections also revealed the emergence of a female voting bloc, with women notably supporting Democratic candidates over their Republican counterparts, highlighting a growing gender gap in electoral preferences. Despite the gains made, women remained a minority in Congress, and the anticipated transformative impact on political culture did not fully materialize. Critics pointed out that the label "Year of the Woman" risks oversimplifying the ongoing struggle for gender equality in politics. Overall, the events of 1992 reflected a culmination of women's long-term political efforts rather than an isolated breakthrough, showcasing both progress and the challenges that remained.
Year of the Woman
Popular political expression attached to congressional elections
Date 1992
The 1992 congressional elections brought twenty-four new women into the House of Representatives and four new women to the Senate, the largest increase in the number of women elected to Congress.
Following the unprecedented results of the 1992 elections, the number of female candidates holding federal office increased from thirty to forty-eight in the House of Representatives and from two to six in the Senate. Political pundits widely heralded 1992 as the “Year of the Woman.” Americans elected the largest number of female candidates to Congress ever in a single election. Because of factors like women’s underrepresentation in Congress historically, retirements, the banking scandal, and congressional redistricting, the House had ninety-three open seats in the 1992 elections, which partially explains female candidates’ congressional successes. Following the election, women accounted for more than 10 percent of the total congressional membership for the first time in American history. The election was also notable because Illinois state legislator Carol Moseley-Braun became the first African American woman elected to the Senate.
Since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 granting woman suffrage, various political observers had predicted the establishment of a women’s voting bloc. Political analysts had in fact prematurely labeled 1984 as the Year of the Woman, expecting a breakthrough year for women in politics when Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, a Democrat from New York, was chosen as the Democratic candidate for vice president. After Ferraro and her running mate, presidential candidate Walter Mondale, lost in a landslide to the incumbent president, Ronald Reagan, a women’s voting bloc failed to develop as predicted.
The 1992 elections revealed a clear female voting bloc with women gravitating to the Democratic Party. For instance, the presidential election exposed an electoral gender gap, with more women supporting Democrat Bill Clinton than Republican president George H. W. Bush, although only by a few percentage points. Clinton’s appeal among female voters grew during his first term, in part due to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, unlike her predecessors, worked full-time outside the home. With the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, congressional consideration of the Family Medical Leave Act, and the debate over abortion in the background, female politicians also ran “as women,” with some explicitly highlighting their differences from male Washington “insiders.”
Impact
The strides women made in the 1992 elections came under scrutiny from all sides. Discrimination against women was not eradicated despite high expectations, while fears as well as optimistic predictions that women would change the political culture in Washington, D.C., failed to materialize. Despite female candidates’ gains in 1992, women remained a clear minority in Congress, while their election rates grew at a slower rate in subsequent congressional races.
As Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat from Maryland, noted, “Calling 1992 the ’Year of the Woman’ makes it sound like the Year of the Caribou or the Year of the Asparagus. We’re not a fad, a fancy, or a year.” Actually, the 1992 elections were not the consequence of a single precipitous event, but rather reflected women’s long-term, historical gains in the political realm. Throughout the twentieth century, female legislators had made significant inroads into many state legislatures, so that the 1992 federal elections followed already-established state-level voting and election trends.
Bibliography
Cook, Elizabeth Adell, Sue Thomas, and Clyde Wilcox. The Year of the Woman: Myths and Realities. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994.
Dolan, Kathleen. “Voting for Women in the ’Year of the Woman.’” American Journal of Political Science 42, no. 1 (January, 1998): 272-293.
Witt, Linda, Karen M. Paget, and Glenna Matthews. Running as a Woman: Gender and Power in American Politics. New York: Free Press, 1994.