UNITED STATES: Crashing the Boys' Club: Facts on Women and Politics

In honor of Thursday's anniversary of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote in the United States of America, here are some facts on women and politics.

The U.S. ranked 73rd in the world for women's representation in the national parliament/legislature out of the 186 countries evaluated.

Women constituted 16.8% of the U.S. House of Representatives and 15.3% of the U.S. Senate.

In 2010, 90 women serve in the U.S. Congress - of the 525 seats. Seventeen women serve in the Senate, and 73 women serve in the House.

Of the 90 women serving in the 111th US Congress, 21, or 23.3%, are women of color; in addition, an African American woman and a Caribbean American woman serve as Delegates to the House from Washington, DC and the Virgin Islands, respectively. No women of color currently serve in the U.S. Senate.

The world average for women's representation in both national upper and lower houses combined is 19.2%. The European average is 22% (down from 30.3% in 2005).

The U.S. ranks below the regional averages for Europe, the Americas, Sub-Suharan Africa and Asia for women's representation in the national parliament/legislature.

Women in Kuwait won the right to vote in 2005. In Saudi Arabia, men took part, in 2005, in the first local elections ever held in the country. Women however were not allowed to exercise their right to vote or to stand for election on that occasion.

Women won the right to vote in the United States in 1920.

When Senators Boxer and Feinstein were elected, California became the first state to be represented simultaneously by two women in the Senate; Kansas was the second (Kassebaum and Frahm), and Maine was the third (Collins and Snowe).

March Fong Eu, who served as California's Secretary of State from 1975-1993 was the first Asian American woman in the country elected statewide to an executive post.

In 2010, women represented 27.5% of California's state legislature with 13 women in the state Senate and 20 in the state Assembly. The percentage of women in California's state legislature decreased in 2006 from 30.8%, but has been steadily increasing since 1979 when women accounted for 9.2% of state legislators.

In 2010, 71 women hold statewide elective executive offices across the country; women hold 22.5% of the 315 available positions. Among these women, 50 are Democrats, 20 are Republicans, and 1 was elected in a nonpartisan race. Of the 71 women serving in statewide elective executive offices, 7, or 9.9%, are women of color.

In 2010, 1,811, or 24.5%, of the 7,382 state legislators in the United States are women. Women hold 435, or 22.1%, of the 1,971 state senate seats and 1,376, or 25.4%, of the 5,411 state house seats. Since 1971, the number of women serving in state legislatures has more than quintupled. Of the 1,811 women state legislators serving nationwide, 355 or 19.6% are women of color. They include 101 senators and 252 representatives; 335 are Democrats, 18 are Republicans and two are non-partisan. Women of color constitute 4.8% of the total 7,382 state legislators. Since 1789, only 2% of members of Congress in the U.S. have been women.

The only woman of color to ever serve in the U.S. Senate is Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL) who served from 1993 to 1999.

No woman of color had ever served as governor of a state in the U.S.

Appointed Secretary of Labor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, and was instrumental in creating the New Deal programs. She remained in office until 1945.

40 women have held a total of 45 cabinet or cabinet-level appointments in the history of our nation. Of the 40, 24 had cabinet posts, including two who headed two different departments, and two who held both a cabinet post and a position defined as a cabinet-level. Seven women currently serve in cabinet or cabinet-level posts.

The first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives was Jeannette Rankin (R-MT), who served from 1917-1919 and again from 1941-42. A pacifist, she was the only person to vote against U.S. entry into both World Wars.

Nellie Tayloe Ross (D-WY) was the nation's first woman governor, picked by her party to run in 1925 after her husband died.

The first women state legislators were three Republicans elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 1894: Clara Cressingham, Carrie C. Holly, and Frances Klock.

Victoria Woodhull, a stockbroker, publisher, and protégé of Cornelius Vanderbilt, ran for president of the United States in 1872 on the Equal Rights Party ticket. Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to practice law before the U.S Supreme Court ran for president on the same party's ticket in 1884 and 1888.

Third-term Congresswoman Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-NY), secretary of the House Democratic Caucus, became the first woman ever to run on a major party's national ticket when she was selected by Walter F. Mondale as his Vice Presidential running mate in 1984. In 2008, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, selected by Senator John McCain as his vice presidential running mate, became the first woman on a national GOP ticket.

74% of Americans feel comfortable with a woman President of the United States, and large majorities believe that a women president would be as good as or better than a man at leading on the issues of foreign policy (78%), homeland security (77%) and the economy (88%).

Women have already and currently serve as head of state in many countries such as the United Kingdom, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Germany, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, San Marino, Panama, Latvia, Switzerland, Ecuador, Liberia, Sri Lanka, Nicaragua, Burundi, Haiti, Malta, Bolivia, Argentina, Guinea Bissau and Mongolia.