We Need Women to Get Off the Political Sidelines

An impassioned plea to show up. Literally.

Vanessa Torre
5 min readAug 31, 2022

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Photo by Edmond Dantès via Pexels

There is a reality that I’m not sure most people understand and I’m of the opinion that if it became more widely known, a lot of men would be terrified and there would be a shift in the United States that would blow the roof off this place. You ready?

Women could take over this country. We choose not to. We consciously make that choice. We are more powerful than men. We just don’t exercise that power. We mobilize better than men, we’re just quieter. We’d rather be Batman than Robin.

I was very active politically for the last election, and I’m even more so for the mid-terms. The more I get involved, the more I see data, and the more I see massive obstacles to be overcome.

Women don’t run for office like men do

Only 31.1% of all state legislators are women, which has increased sharply since Trump’s election in 2016. Still, there is only one state (Nevada) where women outnumber men in the state legislatures. One state.

The upward tick in positions held is seen in the number of women in Congress where there was a 50% increase in the number of women in Congress a decade ago.

Before we start celebrating, lets keep in mind that women only occupy 27% of the House of Representatives and 24% of the Senate. Overwhelmingly, men are making all of the decisions in this country, and we’re letting them.

The vast majority of people running for office in this country are men. In fact, studies have shown that women have to be asked repeatedly to run for office before they’ll actually do it.

Interestingly, I went to breakfast with a friend who is running for office. She is the second person to suggest I run. I laughed and shrugged her off. A week later I met a guy who just moved to Arizona, who tells me he’s considering running for Congress in 2024.

He knows no one, is not familiar with local politics, and didn’t even know whose seat he would be taking if he ran. This is the difference in how…

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Vanessa Torre

Top 10 feminist writer. Writing, coaching, and relentlessly hyping women in midilfe. linktr.ee/Vanessaltorre Email: vanessa@vanessatorre.com