Women Continue to Make Strides in Congressional Representation

By Kenneth Chamberlain

Updated: November 9, 2012 | 5:08 p.m.
November 9, 2012 | 1:26 p.m.

Some of the most prominent members of the House and Senate in recent years have been women, ranging in ideology from liberal House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to conservative former presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

Despite their prominence and despite a historic number of women who will be members of the Senate in 2013, there are still few women in either congressional chamber relative to their proportion of the population.

The charts below show the total number of women in both the House and the Senate who served at any time in each Congress, from the 65th in 1917 through the beginning of the 113th Congress to be sworn in come January, based on counts of female legislators in each Congress on the House of Representatives' Women in Congress website and news reports.

Note that the number of women who will be members of the House in the 113th Congress may increase depending on the outcome of some undecided elections.

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Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) is not only the longest serving woman in the Senate, assuming office on Jan. 3, 1987, and the longest serving Congresswoman having served in the House from Jan. 3, 1977 to Jan. 3, 1987 for a combined time of over 35 years in Congress. (ROB CARR/AP)

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