The Utah Women and Leadership Project released a report on Sept. 5, examining the status of women leaders in government across Utah.
The report details the percentage of women leaders by various categories including county, position type, leadership level and number of county employees.
Project founder Susan Madsen said that although the project began issuing reports about women employment as early as 2013, their 2024 report about county leadership is the second report to analyze women employment in government positions.
“A lot of people think of just for-profit companies being the bulk of where people are employed, but if you really look at government and if you look at universities and schools, a huge number of employees work in state government,” Madsen said.
The most recent report issued by the project found approximately 18,000 adults in Utah work in county government — around 2,800 of these adults work in leadership roles, Madsen said.
She added women now account for approximately 46% of county leadership.
“What (this) means is at the decision making tables of counties across the state there’s going to be not just one woman but there should be multiple women ... So much research — thousands of studies — have found that when you have more equal numbers of men and women you have better decision making, better problem solving, more innovation, more creativity,” Madsen said.
Aimee Winder Newton, a Republican candidate for governor in 2020 and a member of the Salt Lake County Council, experienced the results of the 2024 report firsthand.
She said that when she was first elected to the council in 2014, she was the only female member. Now, she said she serves on a gender-balanced council.
“For a really long time I’d go to the Utah Association of Counties meetings and there were not very many females ... but we’re starting to see more and more women, which I think is very exciting,” Winder Newton said.
Both Madsen and Winder Newton highlighted it is not simply more women that matters but equal representation of both genders.
“There was a Harvard Business study that showed when you have both men and women at a decision making table in business that you get better outcomes. And I think that’s true in government, I think that’s true in our homes — it’s true everywhere ... because we think differently, we ask different questions,” Winder Newton said.
The 2024 report showed elected women in leadership positions can vary largely from county to county.
Although 57% of elected officials in Salt Lake County are women, other counties such as Utah County have approximately 16.7% of elected officials who are women.
Amelia Powers Gardner, the Utah County commissioner, said that when she was first elected as county commissioner in 2021 there was no process for maternity leave and no lactation rooms in official buildings.
“None of that had ever been done before because we’d never had a woman at the top who led that change,” Powers Gardner said.
Although many of her actions in office have been groundbreaking for women, Powers Gardner shared she ran purely because she thought she had the skills to fix problems she saw in county government.
“At the time, it hadn’t even ever occurred to me that we didn’t elect women ... I didn't run to break the glass ceiling, I ran to fix a problem,” Powers Gardner said.
She also shared she has experienced “gender discrimination more as the top elected official in the county," than she did in her previous career working in the trucking and diesel industry.
However, Powers Gardner said the support of her coworkers gives her hope for change.
“The power of having one of your male peers recognize it and call it out cannot be overstated,” she said.
Winder Newton also emphasized the power of speaking up to support women in leadership positions.
“If you see a woman who you think would be good in a leadership position tell her, and ask her if she’s ever considered that ... That’s why I ran for governor in 2020, ... people had asked me to. I would have never thought to do it on my own,” Winder Newton said.
According to Madsen, the project will release a third report in a few months, detailing statistics of women in city and town leadership.