Women make up just over half of the U.S. population, but only a quarter of federal lawmakers identify as female. Melinda French Gates is financing efforts to change the tide on these “unacceptable” statistics and get more women elected — through her company, Pivotal Ventures.

“When our government looks like we look like as a populace, they represent us and they make then laws and policies that we all believe in. And we’re just not there yet,” she told NPR’s Michel Martin.

‘Stop sending women to a broken system’

Women earned the federally-protected right to vote more than a century ago, in 1920, and yet in today’s House of Representatives, there are more men named Mike than there are women chairing committees.

“There are barriers to women running for office,” says Gates, a co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an NPR sponsor.

“We need to stop sending women to a broken system and we need to change the system.”

Read more at: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/26/1189518988/melinda-french-gates-calls-for-womens-parity-in-political-leadership