--- title: Map Shows When Every State Elected a Woman to Congress description: Women could make history in Congress this year, but there's still a long way to go before there's equal representation among lawmakers. canonical: https://time.com/5321147/women-congress-map/ author: David Johnson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-06-26T22:13:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T20:40:31.520Z article:section: Politics og:title: This Map Shows When Each State Elected a Woman to Congress og:description: Women could make history this year — but there's still a long way to go before there's equal representation og:url: https://time.com/5321147/women-congress-map/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Map Shows When Each State Elected a Woman to Congress twitter:description: Women could make history this year — but there's still a long way to go before there's equal representation twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Map Shows When Each State First Elected a Woman to Congress by [David Johnson](https://time.com/author/dave-johnson/) ## David Johnson Jun 26, 2018 10:13 PM UTC by [David Johnson](https://time.com/author/dave-johnson/) ## David Johnson Jun 26, 2018 10:13 PM UTC The U.S. Congress currently has more women than ever before — with [23 female senators and 84 female representatives](http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/women-us-congress-2018), women make up 20% of [Washington lawmakers](https://www.congress.gov/members?q=%7B%22congress%22%3A%22115%22%7D). But there remains a long way to go until the sexes are equally represented in Congress. In fact, 20 states have never been represented by women in the U.S. Senate. (That doesn’t include states that have appointed but never elected a woman, like Georgia, which [appointed the first woman to the Senate](https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/First%5FWoman%5FSenator%5FAppointed.htm) in 1922.) Five states have never elected a woman to the House. Vermont is the only state that has never sent a woman to either chamber of Congress. “Everybody brings their life experience to the table, and we’ve found that women are more likely to prioritize issues affecting women, families and children,” says Debbie Walsh, director of the [Center for American Women and Politics](http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/) at Rutgers University. “It’s not that men don’t support many of those positions, but it takes women to raise those issues and put them on the agenda,” explains Walsh. Click the play button below to watch as women gain seats in Congress over time. The first map shows all of Congress, or you can select a particular chamber. You can also drag the red dot to show a single point in time. The first woman elected to serve in Congress was [Jeannette Rankin](http://time.com/4549800/jeannette-rankin-100/) of Montana, who won a House seat in 1916, four years before women were able to vote nationwide. In the following years, many women were elected or appointed to fill their late husbands’ seats, as the [Pew Research Center](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/14/women-have-long-history-in-congress-but-until-recently-there-havent-been-many/) explains. But women without preexisting congressional ties gradually won more seats. By 1992, 24 female representatives and four female senators were elected in one go, in what came to be known as “The Year of the Woman.” There are now a [record number of women running](http://time.com/5107499/record-number-of-women-are-running-for-office/) in the 2018 midterm elections, according to the [Center for American Women in Politics](http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/footnotes/putting-record-numbers-womens-candidacies-context). And with [women running in at least three states](http://cawp.rutgers.edu/potential-candidate-summary-2018#senate) that have never before had female senators, there’s a chance history could be made come November. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5321147/women-congress-map/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5321147/women-congress-map/"},"headline":"This Map Shows When Each State First Elected a Woman to Congress","datePublished":"2018-06-26T22:13:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T20:40:31.520Z","description":"Women could make history this year — but there's still a long way to go before there's equal representation","url":"https://time.com/5321147/women-congress-map/","keywords":["Congress","onetime","interactive studios"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Johnson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/dave-johnson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5321147/women-congress-map/","name":"This Map Shows When Each State First Elected a Woman to Congress"}}]}] ```