Women in Policy | Clubs & Organizations

About Us

Oregon State University’s Women in Policy student group seeks to serve as a platform for increased collaboration and education for those interested in policy topics, which span all disciplines, including social and natural sciences. The group also aims to build a diverse member base, from casually interested observers to those who are actively pursuing careers in policy-making. Central to the group is to recognize and raise awareness among members and the broader community about historical and current under-representation of women in the policy process. WIP invites both undergraduate and graduate students of any gender to contribute towards this goal. Staff/faculty and community members are also encouraged to participate.

Why Women in Policy?

Look around. Women are severely underrepresented in many institutions.

In Politics:

Within the 2015 U.S. Congress, women make up 19.4% of all senators and representatives.

That’s 20 women, or 20%, of 100 seats in the 2015 U.S. Senate.
That’s 84 women, or 19.3%, of the 435 seats in the 2014 U. S. House of Representatives.

Of the 100 largest cities in the U. S., 17 of those cities have women mayors.

Within state legislatures in 2015, 24.4% of all state legislators in the U.S. are women.

That’s 440, or 22.3%, of the 1,972 state senate seats across the U.S.
That’s 1,364, or 25.2%, of the 5,411 state house or assembly seats across the U.S.
Women of color make up 5.4% of the total 7,383 state legislators nationwide

In the Media:

When it comes to reporting the news in 2014, women constitute 32% of all onscreen news coverage. This includes on-camera reporters and anchors.

In 2014, women reporters produced...

35.2% of science news
34.9% of world politics
34.7% of U.S. political news
32.5% of criminal justice news
10.2% of sports news
The only areas where women were proportionately represented were education, religion, health and lifestyle news.

In 2014, within the top 5 Sunday morning news talk shows, women made up 26% of all guest opinion-makers and analysts.

In Academia:

In 2015, women held 19.3% of dean positions and 33.1% of associate dean positions

In 2015, women were 23.6% of tenured faculty and 19.0% of full professors at business schools

In 2013, women held nearly half of all tenure-tracked positions. However, women held 37.5% of tenured positions

Of non-tenure tracked faculty positions, women held 32.5% of these positions compared to 19.6% for men

In 2013, women were overrepresented in the lowest ranking teaching positions in academic institutions

That's why we exist!

Our goals include:

The education of both association members and the larger community;
Professional development and networking;
Outreach and mentorship.

What does all that mean?

We have great events on campus to watch films and discuss women in politics and the media.
We have roundtable Q&A sessions with women leaders from the worlds of business, politics, science, and academia.
We have networking and career workshops.
We help out with awesome conferences on campus.
We meet political leaders (like the former governor!) and get to witness a "day in the life."
We get to know each other, build friendships and connections, and chat about current events, gender equality, and other fun things.
Oh, and occasionally, there's free food, too.

We hope you'll stop by and check us out! We'd love to meet you!

Ready to join?

Email us at [email protected]