Mirroring national trends, women in Alabama are stepping up in large numbers, ready to take a seat in the statehouse.
Currently, there are very few female lawmakers in Montgomery.
In fact, just 15 percent, or 21 out of 140, state legislators are women. And while the number of women is increasing, Alabama has a long way to go to reach parity.
"It's sad that we are 52 percent of the population, but we hold so few state legislative seats," said Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, one of only four females sitting in Alabama's 35 Senate seats.
All 140 legislative seats are up for election this year and candidate qualifying ended Friday, Feb. 9.
So, how many women qualified to run for Alabama's statehouse in 2018?
According to each party's website, it appears that 63 women---49 Democrats and 14 Republicans---qualified for state legislative offices by the deadline.
Nationally, Alabama ranks low, 45th out of 50, for the percentage of women serving in the state legislature.
But if a female candidate for Alabama's statehouse wins every seat a woman qualified for, the number of elected female state lawmakers would more than double---to 56, or nearly 38 percent.
That rise would catapult Alabama to the number six spot in the country.
Which states currently have the highest percentage of women in their state legislatures? Arizona and Vermont, with 40 percent, take the number one spot.
Most states at the bottom of the list are in the South, but Wyoming takes the bottom spot, with only 11 percent of state legislative offices held by women.
No state has a truly representative percentage of women serving in their state legislature according to Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics, or CAWP.
But women in the South have their own set of challenges, CAWP's Associate Director Jean Sinzdak said.
Southern women typically lag behind in terms of education and equal pay, and that likely factors in to Alabama's poor showing in the statehouse, she said.
"I've heard many many people describe many of the Southern legislatures as being very much a 'Good Old Boy' network, still," Sinzdak said. "Certainly, other legislatures are 'old boy' networks, but Southern legislatures have a reputation as being outdated in behaviors and norms that keep women from advancing."
Emerge Alabama's Executive Director Stacie Propst takes that description a step further. "We are being ruled by an elite minority," Propst said. "White men are 31 percent of the population, but they hold 96 seats in the state legislature." That's 70 percent of seats in both chambers that are filled by white men.
Propst, through her work with Emerge Alabama hopes to move Alabama's statehouse closer to parity among women and women this election cycle.
Alabama became the 20th state to join the national Emerge America network whose overarching goal is to get more Democratic women elected to public office by providing training and support to candidates.
"We're teaching women how to run a campaign, soup-to-nuts," Propst said.
Emerge Alabama doesn't endorse or raise money for candidates, she said, but the network developed through the training provides a greater benefit.
An Alabama native, Propst is no stranger to politics, having spent 10 years in the nation's capital advocating in Congress for science funding and evidence-based public policies. She is excited to talk about the 26 women currently enrolled in the organization's 70-hour candidate training program.
"It's a big commitment," Propst said. Not all are running for a statehouse position in November, she said, but many are. And for most, this is their first time running for office.
Propst said she is getting calls all over the state from women who say they can't pass up the opportunity to run for the state legislature.
CAWP's Sinzdak oversees the organization's national "Ready to Run" campaign, a nonpartisan effort which encourages women to run for political office and tracks the number of women running for state and Congressional offices.
Sinzdak said they're seeing "double the numbers of women" running for statewide Congressional seats. "It's quite dramatic," she said, adding that the last time this type of uptick in candidates happened was in 1992, referred to as "The Year of the Woman."
Women candidates: do they win?
Sinzdak said, "Women win at the same rates as men in comparable races. Women just aren't running as many races as men are."
But, she said, "Women are still the primary caretakers in their households," and often juggle multiple roles, including taking care of family members and their own work responsibilities, which can keep them from running for elected office in the first place.
Alabama Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, agrees that women juggle more roles, and sees that as a strength.
That multi-tasking, she said, makes women well suited to be state lawmakers. "Women come with a whole lot more equipment from their past experiences. [Women] bring a whole lot more to the table than men simply because of what they have had to do."
Coleman-Madison, a licensed realtor, is serving her third term in the Senate, but has served in other elected positions, including one term in the House of Representatives and three terms on the Birmingham City Council before her election to District 20 in the Senate. She is seeking a fourth term this year.
Propst said the Emerge network has had tremendous success across the country. In 2017, she said, "Seventy-three percent of Emerge-trained candidates who got to their general [election], won their general election."
The diversity of candidates who are training with Emerge Alabama and the commitment they have made is a good sign, she said. Women are stepping forward in a way she hasn't previously seen.
But Propst knows a critical mass of women, working together, is necessary to have a big impact. "All of us have figured out that we're going to have to work together to get over this last hump of inequality," she said.
Why women need to be in the statehouse
Propst said it's simple: "Research shows women legislate differently. They are more collaborative."
Sinzdak agreed, adding, "They're more likely to build consensus across the aisle." Sinzdak said women tackle issues that male legislators might not see as priorities, pointing to female Senators in Congress who pushed a bipartisan effort to deal with sexual assault in the military.
"Would male legislators have paid attention to it in the same way," she asked.
Women bring up issues that might not otherwise be addressed and that other women are experiencing, Sinzdak said. Also, she said, "There is research that shows women elected officials bring other marginalized or underrepresented groups into the governing process."
There is also a perception that there need to be more women in elected positions to lessen the likelihood of harassment associated with the #MeToo movement, Sinzdak said. "Because of what's happening, we need to give more women a voice."
Coleman-Madison said women tend to bring up issues that matter to families.
Sinzdak agreed, saying women are drawn to issues typically associated with the social safety net. "Women are more likely to carry the water on issues like health and education," she said, but also care about the economy and jobs.
The small number of women at the statehouse means some legislative committees have no female members. Committees serve as gateways for new bills and must gain committee approval before they can be voted on by the full chamber.
In the House, three committees---Agriculture and Forestry, Ethics and Campaign Finance, and Military and Veterans Affairs---have no women at the table. Another four local legislation committees---Baldwin County, Limestone County, Montgomery County and Tuscaloosa County---also have no female members.
In the Senate, two local legislative committees---Shelby County and Madison County---have no female members. The Senate's Tourism and Marketing committee has no women on the committee, either. The remaining 17 committees have either one or two female members.
Given Alabama's history of corruption of elected officials, are women a safer bet?
Sinzdak said that perception is out there, which can give female candidates an advantage, but there isn't any clear research showing whether women are less "ethically-challenged" than men, partly because women don't have as long of a history of being in the statehouse.
"We're only now at 25 percent," she said, pointing out that it wasn't until the 1980s that women comprised 10 percent of statehouse officials across the country. That's a small body to research, she said.
Alabama's rise was even slower: the percentage of women in Alabama's statehouse didn't reach 10 percent until 2003.
Democratic women outnumber Republican women in Alabama's statehouse
Democratic women outnumber Republican women two-to-one in Alabama's statehouse: 14 Democrats to 7 Republicans. Nationwide, 61 percent of women state legislators are Democrats, and 38 percent are Republicans.
As to why more women run as Democrats, Sinzdak said, "Part of that is because the Democratic Party generally supports the social safety net issues," which are generally the same issues women care about.
Though there isn't extensive research on why Republican women run in smaller numbers, Sinzdak said she is concerned. The national uptick in women running for office "is entirely on the Democratic side. We're not seeing more Republican women running and that's a real concern," she said.
"Ideally you would have women in both parties running and we'd be a lot closer to parity if there were more women on the Republican side, but we're losing them."
Alabama Republican Party Chair Terry Lathan said there are likely many different reasons why women don't run for office overall but couldn't say why Republican women in general were less likely to run.
Lathan said she is encouraged that more Republican women are running than in previous years and pointed out the success that Gov. Kay Ivey has had at the state level, holding the position of Lieutenant Governor before ascending to Governor in 2017.
Ivey, a Republican, is one of only six female Governors in the country according to CAWP. Four are Republicans, and two are Democrats.
Mary Scott Hunter is running for Senate District 7 encompassing parts of Madison County in north Alabama.
Hunter, currently one of eight elected state board of education members, said she hadn't given much thought to being, according to the Alabama Republican Party's qualified candidate list, one of only three Republican women running for one of the 35 positions in Alabama's Senate.
Ten female Democrats qualified Friday to run for the state Senate.
No Republican women currently serve in Alabama's Senate. There are four women currently serving as Alabama Senators: three Democrats and one Independent.
"I didn't look at the Senate and say 'oh, there are no women, I'm going to go run," Hunter said. "I'm running for the state Senate because it's where I genuinely think I can best serve and I've got something to offer."
Hunter, who served in the military and practices law, doesn't see the state's majority-male Senate as a barrier.
"The way I was raised, the expectations that were put on me, I've never really seen barriers," Hunter said. Hunter said her parents and others who have mentored her along the way encouraged her to keep moving forward and finding ways to serve.
"I think Republicans do need to do better, obviously," Hunter said, acknowledging that Republican women are underrepresented as elected officials.
With that said, though, Hunter said she doesn't really consider the gender of a candidate, but rather whether the person is a running on a platform she agrees with.
Lathan agreed with Hunter, saying while she would like to see more female candidates for office, "I don't think we should vote blindly because of one's gender. I think we should vote strongly because of one's policy and platform.".
Why don't women run?
Sinzdak said there are many reasons why women don't run as often as men do.
One of the primary reasons? Men hold the majority of seats. It's really hard to beat an incumbent, Sinzdak said. "They win 90 percent of the time, usually."
Open seats provide an easier way in, she said, and are typically easier for newcomers to win.
That male majority presents another problem, Sinzdak said. When there are only a few women in a state legislature, she said, "it's harder for women to imagine themselves there and also find a path to get there."
One of the other big reasons women don't run is that nobody asks them to, Sinzdak said, and women are far less likely to be recruited for public office. "Elected officials and party leaders are more likely to ask men," she said. "That makes a huge difference."
Also, Sinzdak said, "[Women] are turned off by the negativity of politics."
Lathan agreed, calling that negativity the "ick" factor, and saying that women, as nurturers, tend to not want to be a part of that world. "Women ask, 'why would I get myself involved with that? Why would I do this with my family?'," Lathan said. All of that tends to make women say "that's not for me," she said.
"Women often have family and children in the nucleus of their decision-making processes," Lathan said, adding that women may be more likely to think about running for office after their children are grown and they have more freedom and more time to give back.
Juggling multiple roles and holding a job while serving as a legislator can be hard for women who don't have access to other financial resources, Sinzdak said, adding, "It's essentially a volunteer job in a lot of cases."
Alabama's legislators will earn $46,257 for serving in 2018, according to the Alabama Fiscal Services Agency 2018 Budget Fact Book. If legislators were paid as a full-time job, that barrier becomes less of a challenge, she said.
Just last month, Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, announced she would not seek re-election because of concerns about holding a job that isn't in conflict with Alabama's ethics laws.
"The current ethic laws and the time to serve as a legislator create a barrier for me to secure full time employment and it has created a financial burden on my family," Todd said in a statement announcing her decision.
Todd was elected in 2006 and is Alabama's only openly gay state legislator.
Emerge Alabama's Propst said many women are put off by the mystique of getting elected.
"Demystifying the idea of running for office is very important," Propst said. "Especially in a place like Alabama where they make it seem like you have to be hand-picked to get into office."
"This is math, not magic," Propst said.
"This is not some sort of miraculous thing that only a person with tons of money can do, and you don't have to be plucked by the leadership to do it. You can just run."
Is Alabama at a turning point for women running for office?
Propst says yes. In her view, the Dec. 12 election of Democrat Doug Jones for U.S. Senator signaled a turning point for women.
"Many people would argue that Doug Jones got elected by women across the state," she said, and a lot of the women who worked at the grassroots level to get Jones elected are now running for office.
A bigger question may be whether Alabama is ready for more women in the statehouse.
To that, Propst said, "This wave is happening whether we're ready or not."