When St. Paul City Council President Mitra Jalali looked out at her fellow council members at their initial meeting this week, she saw all the members' seats were occupied by women—a first for Minnesota's capital city. Experts who track women in politics said St. Paul, with a population of about 300,000 people, is the first large US city they know of with an all-female city council, the AP reports. But even as the council members celebrate the milestone, they are expressing more excitement about what the all-female council can accomplish in the coming year.
"We're a multifaith, multicultural group of women. Our professional experiences are what people trusted as much as our personal ones," Jalali tells the AP. All seven women are under 40 years old, and six out of the seven are women of color. From civil engineering to nonprofit directing, they have a wide range of professional experiences, which Jalali says helps capture the city's diversity. "I think that our community is finally reflected by the city council," Jalali says, adding, "The median age of our community is 32.5. We are a majority person-of-color city. We have many major racial and ethnic groups, many of which are now represented on this council."
According to researchers with the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, St. Paul is the largest US city they are aware of to ever have an all-female city council. The Rutgers data show that women continue to be underrepresented as municipal officials across the country. Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the center, says seven out of 10 municipal office holders across the country are male, and most of them are white. "The fact that you have an all-female council and a majority of women of color, it has a long-term effect on young women and girls seeing them and saying, 'I can do this, too,'" Sinzdak says. The council is a nonpartisan office, but all seven members are Democrats.
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Karen Kedrowski, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University, says the number of women elected to legislative, congressional, and municipal offices seems to consistently level off around 25% to 30% across the US. "So to have a 100% female city council in a major city in the United States is really significant. If it's not the first one, it's one of the first where this has happened—so it's a big deal," Kedrowski says. Alaska and Arizona have the highest proportions of women in municipal office at 45%, according to the Rutgers data. North Dakota had the lowest at 20%.
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