These California youth programs perpetuate old gender inequities. Here’s a fix

Senate Bill 363 addresses the disproportionate access and opportunities given to girls and boys in civic education programs across the state. It’s critical that everyone support the legislation to take a stand against institutional gender norms limiting young women and their potential to lead.

The 2020 election of Vice President Kamala Harris made history for women in politics, as she’s the first woman to hold the office of the vice president. But we are far from equality when it comes to the opportunities and exposure girls have in politics.

Tackling this issue, California state Sen. Connie Leyva’s SB 363 seeks to ensure gender equity in civic education programs — specifically the American Legion/Auxiliary’s Boys and Girls State programs — that use Sacramento’s public resources, such as the Capitol.

You may recognize the Boys State program from Apple TV’s recent and popular documentary, Boys State. The film follows the Texas American Legion Boys State as it converts teenage boys into politicians in the course of a week. What was missing was the counterpart to Boys State: Girls State.

Girls State acts as a perfect case study of programs that maintain stark disparities across gender lines in political aspirations. While the program aims to expose girls to government, it lacks the powerful messaging and opportunities that the Capitol and the Boys State program provide.

The girls, like the boys, go through an intense nomination and application process to participate in the program. Only the “best and brightest” young men and women in the state, with fully-loaded résumés and all-star interviews, make the cut. Once at Boys and Girls State, the teens are taught the basics of campaigning for office and governing a state at all levels (local, legislative, judicial, executive). It’s essentially politics boot camp.

While both programs aim to empower and coach students into becoming effective leaders, the two programs look very different. In California, like other states, Boys State takes place at the state Capitol in Sacramento. There, the boys walk the halls of the Capitol building, receive certificates recognizing their achievements and meet with their representatives. In contrast, Girls State programs are typically run on college campuses, sometimes hundreds of miles from the Capitol.

The girls chant songs that invoke themes of street harassment and objectification with lyrics focused on appearance while the boys meet with college representatives, law enforcement recruiters and local officials. The gender segregation of the program, coupled with these stark differences, produce blatant inequality and an offensive lack of value for female leadership development.

The politics and leadership education gap begins in childhood. Girls are less likely to be considered suitable for the political sphere, being stereotyped as too “gentle” and “maternal,” despite women in Congress passing double the legislation than men in an average session. As a result, women are less likely to pursue a career in politics.

In a national survey of high school and college students, researchers from the Cambridge Political Science Review found that 35% of women had considered running for office, compared to 48% of men. In asking about future plans to run, men were more likely to strongly consider running for office, and women were more likely to oppose ever running.

A quick search of famous “State” alumni yields a long list of astronauts, representatives, governors, vice presidents and presidents — an overwhelming majority of which hail from Boys State. Girls State, a program with the same mission, fails to produce leaders at the same rate. Of course, this is in part due to a historical imbalance in leadership. But Boys and Girls State were built on that imbalance and continue to perpetuate it, as exemplified by these results.

Without tangible access to power and without role models girls don’t feel as empowered to take on roles of leadership, and our government continues to be dominated by an unrepresentative body. Empowered women empower women, and more women in politics encourages others women to run for office or even hold positions on company boards (boosting GDP in the process). If not actively confronted, separation from role models and places of power only serve to continue gender disparity in political representation and prevent women in all spheres from reaching their highest potential.

Programs like Girls State masquerade as a part of the movement to tear down roadblocks to girls’ empowerment but still provide unequal opportunities and promote archaic gender roles. We must pass SB 363 to pressure these programs to provide equitable access and opportunity for young women in California.