Women make up half of NH's population. You wouldn't know it by looking at the Legislature.

Yahoo

31-03-2025

The New Hampshire House convenes on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Photo by Claire Sullivan/New Hampshire Bulletin)
Women hold top spots in New Hampshire politics, including the governorship and three-quarters of the congressional delegation. In the Legislature, though, they remain significantly underrepresented.
While women make up 50.1% of the state's population, per the latest census, they make up only 35.8% of the legislative chambers combined, according to data from Rutgers University's Center for American Women in Politics. Historically and today, the largest gender gaps are in the 400-person House. Women are also typically underrepresented in the 24-person Senate, but they have reached gender parity briefly this century and, for two years, outnumbered men in the chamber by one seat.
Women lawmakers across the political spectrum offered a variety of opinions on why women remain underrepresented in the Legislature — and whether that underrepresentation has policy consequences for the state. While New Hampshire's citizen Legislature is a point of pride for many, some said the $100-a-year pay had a disproportionate impact on women, who studies show still bear the brunt of child care and domestic duties. Women who were raising children while in office said strong support systems were essential for allowing them to do their work as elected officials.
Researchers said women see better representation in legislatures that are more professionalized, meaning elected office is a full-time job with better pay and resources like strong staff support and an office. They also pointed to other factors affecting women's participation, like party recruitment efforts.
Some lawmakers described the personal impact of being a woman in a space dominated by men. They felt they had to work harder than their male colleagues to be taken seriously, and faced gendered stereotyping or assumptions. Meanwhile, others felt their gender posed no or little challenge to their political life.
New Hampshire is in the middle of the pack among states when it comes to women's representation in legislatures. Nevada is the only legislature where women outnumber men, making up 60.3% of the chambers. In Arizona, women and men have equal representation, and in the other 48 states, there are more men than women. In Congress, 28% of lawmakers are women.
The share of women in the Legislature, with some spikes, has remained relatively stagnant over the decades.
'One of the things that those of us who study this like to say is that, you know, there's nothing inevitable about women's representation. It's not as though time itself changes anything,' said Anna Mahoney, the executive director of Dartmouth College's Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences. 'What changes women's participation in government is action, either on behalf of political parties, or grassroots organizations, (or) women candidates themselves.'
There's a question Becky Whitley heard more than any other in her brief run for the state's 2nd Congressional District last year — a question she wonders if a male candidate would hear.
'The number one question that I was asked, even by my own family members, was, you know: 'What about your son?'' Whitley said. 'And so I just question whether — and I don't know, I can't speak from experience — do men get the same questions, right?'
Whitley represented the capital area as a Democrat in the state Senate from 2020 to 2024. In her political experience, she felt women faced different pressures and expectations than men. That was felt across the aisle, too.
Sen. Denise Ricciardi, a Bedford Republican and a deputy majority leader in the Senate, said she's used to challenging those expectations.
'If you've seen me, I have big hair, and I wear high heels. I think that people underestimate me because I don't want to change my style to be taken more seriously, right?' Ricciardi said. 'So you have to work harder. … I have to prove myself, but I don't mind. In fact, it feels like a victory when you do prove yourself, and people see the real you.'
Ricciardi isn't a fan of party politics; she said she's motivated instead by 'doing what's right for people.' She said she feels women in a male-dominated space 'have to work harder to be taken more seriously.'
While she said she hasn't really experienced this perception from voters, 'I definitely think with colleagues, I think there's just this thought that … we're not as smart or we can't do it … the way they want to do it,' she said.
Whitley said 'women have a very fine line to walk.'
'I felt this acutely in terms of … our standards for behavior, in terms of how strong we can be, in terms of our decorum, in terms of what we look like, what we can say,' Whitley said. 'I felt very acutely that the line for what was appropriate for women in, you know, the public sphere was … quite different than it is for men. And so … I have always felt like, you know, I have to work a little bit harder. I have to be a little bit clearer. I have to … really walk that line. And I certainly think that men in my same position don't feel that way.'
Other women lawmakers felt differently. Asked whether there are still obstacles for women in politics today, Sen. Regina Birdsell, a Hampstead Republican who serves as majority leader, said, 'When I first got in, I say yes, but things are really starting to open up.' She said she has often observed women beat out men in legislative races, and that she has seen more younger women getting involved than when she first ran in 2010.
'If a woman is really interested in running, and they do it right, I think they have a much better chance of prevailing,' Birdsell said. 'So I think … if you know how to do it, and you do it right, I think the door is wide open for you.'
Rep. Judy Aron, a South Acworth Republican who chairs the House Environment and Agriculture Committee, said she felt 'we're way past that' in terms of women facing obstacles in politics.
'I don't know that there's any particular right number of percentage. I mean, why should it be 50/50?' Aron said. 'I think it's a matter of … who our voters think are qualified to do these jobs, or be in these elected positions.'
But others felt fewer women in the Legislature meant less attention on issues that impact women. Mahoney, the Dartmouth researcher, said 'a lot of the research shows that when you have more women in your legislature, the topics that you're talking about and the legislative agenda itself shifts.'
Ricciardi pointed to the 'Momnibus' bills, legislation aimed at maternal health spearheaded by women. Male colleagues aren't as focused 'on maternal issues, child care issues, family issues as much, and those are really important things that we need in our state,' she said.
Women have unique lived experiences to bring to the table, said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who was the first woman in American history to be elected both as a governor and a U.S. senator.
'You know, I used to say this a lot when I became the first woman to be elected as New Hampshire's governor: women make up half of our population, and we have different life experiences than men do,' Shaheen said in a statement to the Bulletin. 'Not better or worse — but different, and it's important to have those experiences and views represented, regardless of which side of the aisle those women fall on.'
Women shape elected bodies beyond just legislation, Mahoney said. Their presence in legislatures can affect everything from the architecture of the buildings where they work — adding women's restrooms by the chambers' floors where they weren't before or rooms for nursing — to the culture of the chambers.
'When we look to see what kind of impact women have once they're in the institution,' she said, 'one of the things that I like to look at is not just necessarily the bills that they are supporting or that they're voting for, but how they're changing the institution itself.'
The challenges facing women are multipronged, and so are the solutions to getting more in office, researchers said.
'We need societal and cultural change,' Mahoney said, 'but we also need the nuts and bolts of party infrastructure and legitimate support in order to increase the number of women running for office.'
Those recruitment efforts may be difficult for candidates of any gender at a time 'when government is not necessarily seen as a place where good things can get done efficiently,' and trust in American institutions is low, she said.
In terms of challenges on the campaign trail, research into voters' perceptions of women candidates is 'sort of mixed,' Mahoney said.
In the general election, 'you don't see as much bias, because people are really relying on party cues, and so they're going to vote for their party regardless of who the candidate is,' she said. 'It's really in those primary contests where women face specific challenges of fundraising, whether they are perceived to be really legitimate candidates that can win, and those sorts of things.'
Women candidates can benefit in elections where topics considered 'women's issues' — like reproductive rights — are important, Mahoney said.
The set-up of a legislature can pose its own challenges. Emily Baer, an assistant professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, pointed to the fact that in more professionalized legislatures, with better pay and more staff support, 'women tend to be better represented.'
The 'flip side' of having a citizen Legislature in New Hampshire, she said, 'is it's much harder for women to serve in a state that is not providing them with the resources to pursue that as a career, while also balancing other things in their personal and professional lives.'
This may have an acute effect on women in particular because of factors like being underrepresented in professions that are considered political pipelines, as well as access to child care and other resources, she said.
'A lot of studies still show that women, even when they are working full-time professional careers, still do a lot more at home in terms of household responsibilities and child care responsibilities,' Baer said, 'and serving in the state Legislature — particularly if it's not something that can be a career for them, and they're balancing it alongside their own professional career and then higher levels of responsibility at home — that's something that affects women politicians much more than it would affect male politicians.'
Additionally, the citizen Legislature has a 'bias towards older, retired individuals,' Baer said, 'because they might have more time and slightly better financial position to allow them to serve in those legislatures. And so when we talk about parity in women's representation, you want parity that actually reflects the diversity of that group as well.'
Research has found that women often wait to run for office until their children have gone to school or left home, which 'frequently delays women's entrance into politics,' Mahoney said. For many, family support is key.
Whitley, the former capital-area state senator, said her supportive spouse and community, as well as her mother nearby, made her public service possible.
'But not everyone has that, and so if one of those things weren't true, I wouldn't have been able to serve,' Whitley said. And, even then, serving longer than the four years she was in office 'just wasn't sustainable for my family,' she said.
Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, the Senate minority leader and a Portsmouth Democrat, said her legislative work 'requires a lot of supportive people in my life, and also a really good mastery of Google calendar.'
She's found it helpful to talk with other moms doing similar work, and she hopes to return the help, even if it's just talking about the actual logistics of the job, like juggling legislative demands with getting the kids to school.
'Just being able to kind of demystify that, I think, for people makes it a little more accessible,' she said.
Birdsell, the Senate majority leader, said a program she was in aimed at getting Republican women in the state to run for office helped her greatly. They learned about media, the basics of the Legislature, went to Washington, D.C., and met stakeholders involved in the political process. That program is now defunct, but she said she would love to see its return.
And while state legislatures can be stepping stones to higher office, a number of women who propelled themselves to the highest political planes in New Hampshire — Congress and the governorship — did so without first serving in the State House, Baer noted, suggesting other avenues for women candidates.
Perkins Kwoka thinks women serving can act as a positive feedback loop.
'The more women we have serving, the more women, I think, will be able to see themselves in the role,' she said.