EMILYs List Recognizes Mental Health Awareness Month

For Immediate Release
May 2, 2022

EMILYs List Recognizes Mental Health Awareness Month

WASHINGTON, D.C. – May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a commemoration founded by Mental Health America to fight stigma and increase support to people living with mental illness. In recognition, Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, released the following statement: 
 
“Mental health care is a vital element of overall health. EMILYs List is proud to recognize Mental Health Awareness Month in an effort to normalize conversation about mental illness and promote inclusive, responsive mental health policies. We applaud champions of care like Reps. Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, Jan Schakowsky, Pramila Jayapal, and Susan Wild who have led the fight for community access; and we celebrate the work done by Sens. Tina Smith, Patty Murray, Jacky Rosen, and Tammy Baldwin, among others — each of whom have sought to break down barriers to mental health care. 

“Women are twice as likely as men to experience depression during their lifetime. Without proper treatment, this disparity will only grow. At EMILYs List, we are committed to lifting up Democratic pro-choice women to ensure our needs are represented by those who best understand them.”

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 159 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.