In the 2018 midterm elections, 102 women were elected to the House and 14 to the Senate'a record for both bodies. And yet nearly a century after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the notion of congressional gender parity by 2020'a stated goal of the National Women's Political Caucus at the time of its founding in 1971'remains a distant ideal. In Suffrage at 100, Stacie Taranto and Leandra Zarnow bring together twenty-two scholars to take stock of women's engagement in electoral politics over the past one hundred years. Why, they ask, has women's struggle to achieve equal political power in the United States dragged on longer than the nearly seventy-five-year campaign for women's suffrage?
This is the first wide-ranging collection to historically examine women's full political engagement in and beyond electoral office since they gained a constitutional right to vote. The book explores why women's access to, and influence on, political power remains frustratingly uneven, particularly for women of color and queer women. Examining how women have acted collectively and individually, both within and outside of electoral and governmental channels, the book moves from the front lines of community organizing to the highest glass ceiling. Essays touch on
A final section, ""Looking Toward a New Century for Women in Politics,"" historicizes women's political engagement in the twenty-first century. Bringing this history up to the Women's March and the #MeToo movement, the collection assesses how far women have come'the diversity of women in Congress and who ran for president in 2020 would have been unimaginable in 1920'as well as the ongoing challenges of navigating a patriarchal political system rife with institutional barriers and a culture centered on a white masculine model of leadership.
Contributors: Melissa Estes Blair, Eileen Boris, Marisela R. Ch+ívez, Claire Delahaye, Nicole Eaton, Liette Gidlow, Holly Miowak Guise (I+¦upiaq), Emily Suzanne Johnson, Dean J. Kotlowski, Monica L. Mercado, Johanna Neuman, Kathleen Banks Nutter, Katherine Parkin, Ellen G. Rafshoon, Bianca Rowlett, Sarah B. Rowley, Ana Stevenson, Barbara Winslow, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Nancy Beck Young
Introduction. From Voting Power to Political PowerStacie Taranto and Leandra ZarnowChapter 1. A History of Women in American Politics and the Enduring Male Political Citizenship IdealStacie Taranto and Leandra Zarnow
Part I. Voting Rights Real and Imagined: Women's Political Engagement in the Decades after Suffrage, 1920s-1950sChapter 2. Commemorating the History of the Nineteenth Amendment: The National Woman's Party and the Politics of Memory in the 1920sClaire DelahayeChapter 3. After the ""Century of Struggle"": The Nineteenth Amendment, Southern African American Women, and the Problem of Female Disfranchisement After 1920Liette GidlowChapter 4. ""My Money's on the Mare"": Lessons from the 1930 US Senate Campaign of Ruth Hanna McCormickJohanna NeumanChapter 5. ""A Dead Husband Is a Better Ticket to Congress Than a Log Cabin"": The Public Discourse of Widows in Office, 1920-1940Katherine ParkinChapter 6. Beyond the New Deal Network: Mary Elizabeth Switzer at the Federal Security Agency, 1939-1945Dean KotlowskiChapter 7. Elizabeth Peratrovich, the Alaska Native Sisterhood, and Indigenous Women's Activism, 1943-1947Holly Miowak GuiseChapter 8. ""These Men Have Such Dominant Positions"": The Women's Committee for Educational Freedom and the Gendered Battle for Liberalism in the 1940sNancy Beck YoungChapter 9. ""I Have Talked to You Not as Women but as American Citizens"": The Gender Ideology of Presidential Campaigns, 1940-1956Melissa Estes Blair
Part II. Women's Political Leadership Takes Shape: Reform and Reaction, 1960s-1980sChapter 10. From Suffragist to Congresswoman: Celebrating Political Action, Women's History, and Feminist Intellectuals in Ms. Magazine, 1972-1984Ana StevensonChapter 11. ""You Know Where I Stand"": Louise Day Hicks and the Politics of Race, Class and Gender, 1963-1975Kathleen Banks NutterChapter 12. On the Shirley Chisholm Trail: The Legacy of Suffrage and Citizenship EngagementBarbara WinslowChapter 13. Envisioning the National Women's Conference: Patsy Takemoto Mink and Pacific FeminismJudy Tzu-Chun WuChapter 14. Married Congresswomen and the New Breed of Political Husbands in 1970s Political CultureSarah B. RowleyChapter 15. Madame Ambassador: Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and Global DiplomacyBianca Rowlett
Part III. Looking Toward a New Century for Women in Politics, 1990s-2010s Chapter 16. Palin versus Clinton: Feminism, Womanhood, and the 2008 Presidential ElectionEmily Suzanne JohnsonChapter 17. Tribute Politics: How Feminist History Became a Reference Point in the 2016 ElectionNicole EatonChapter 18. Rooted in Community: The Scholarship of Chicana Leadership and ActivismMarisela R. ChávezChapter 19. Pave It Blue: Georgia Women and Politics in the Trump EraEllen G. RafshoonChapter 20. Putting Women on a Pedestal: Monument Debates in the Era of the Suffrage CentennialMonica L. MercadoChapter 21. Toward a New New Deal... and the Women Will LeadEileen BorisAcknowledgmentsContributorsIndex
