I'm Kimberly Atkins store and welcome to justice by design because justice does not just happen.

It is done by design by the hard work of the people who are committed to making a change.

And that's what we look at here.

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You know, representation is important. That's the very nature of our government. We have a representational democracy. And that means the people who are elected, whether it's in the highest offices here

in Washington or in your local school boards, they should reflect us. And that means they should

look like us. They should look like Americans in all our complexities and diversities and

differences. But we know from the present day and from our history

that that is usually not the case. It really never has been. And that's certainly true when it

comes to women in our political power centers. You know, history is replete with examples of our government not representing

women equally. It wasn't until the last century that women even got the right to vote. Think about

that. How recent that was. And ever since the height of the suffrage movement, women have never achieved complete parity.

We make up 51% of the population.

But what do we make up in terms of our representation in government?

How many women presidents have there been out of 45, one who was elected two separate times? Zero. How many women are there

right now in the U.S. Senate? Just 25 out of 100. That's just a quarter. Only just over 28% of the

House of Representatives are made of women. And even within that, there is a lack of diversity within the women that we do have. More of the women are Democrats than Republicans. More of the women are white than of color. And meanwhile, the most pressing issues that voters are talking about in this election year, they affect everybody, to be sure, but they affect women in a unique way. I'm talking about reproductive rights. I'm talking about access to affordable child care. I am talking about fixing the gender wage gap. I'm talking about access to business capital,

especially for women-owned businesses. These are issues that are facing everyday Americans,

but they are hitting women hardest. So why does it feel like women are being left behind?

You know, I have two women joining us today to get to the bottom of why we are here, but more importantly to talk about the solutions to putting women at the center of the table when it comes to these political decisions.

Well, I have two women joining me today to discuss solutions for the gender gap in our political power centers.

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