September 04, 2018
NEWS & NOTES
A newsletter to keep you informed about all things women and politics from the Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University.

CAWP Scholars to Release New Book: A Seat at the Table
CAWP scholars Kelly Dittmar, Kira Sanbonmatsu, and Susan J. Carroll will release their new book, A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen's Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters on September 14th, 2018. We've spent the summer talking about all the records women have broken this year as candidates; now find out why having them in government makes a difference in all our lives. The book features interviews with more than 75% of the women in the 114th Congress, who offer invaluable insights into how better representation leads to better government. Pre-order your copy today via Oxford University Press or Amazon.

Seeking Manuscripts for the CAWP Series in Gender and American Politics at the University of Michigan Press 
The University of Michigan Press is seeking new book manuscripts for its CAWP Series in Gender and American Politics. The series is specifically soliciting work that examines gender from an intersectional perspective and that employs innovative methodological approaches. Find out more about the series here and the call for manuscripts here.

New to the CAWP Series? Good news! UMP is running a sale on books in the series until the end of the year! Save 30% on each book in the series, or 50% on a bundle of the full series .
Back to School with Teach a Girl to LeadTM
Hawaii State Representative Lauren Matsumoto reading Grace for President to children in her district
School is back in session and CAWP has resources available for students of all levels through our Teach a Girl to Lead TM initiative. From classroom activities to full lesson modules to books, films, and online videos, these resources help teachers shift perceptions of what leadership means and what a leader looks like. An interactive map on the TAG site guides visitors to partner programs throughout the country and provides information on important sites in women's history for field trip planning.

Thanks to the generous support of The Honorable Connie H. Williams and the Hess Foundation, along with Comcast NBCUniversal, CAWP is sponsoring a TAG Reading Project for the third year in a row. We recently sent copies of the book Grace for President to women members of Congress, statewide elected executives, and state legislators throughout the country, encouraging them to visit an elementary school in their district to read the book to the school's students. Grace for President tells the story of a young girl who decides to run for class president after making the shocking discovery that every single U.S. President in history has been a man. Teach a Girl to Lead TM programs help girls, and boys, conceptualize a vision of leadership that is more broadly inclusive.
When asked to draw a "leader" most people
-children and adults, men and women-
draw a man.

Help us shift the paradigm.
give now  
There's More Than One Way to Get Involved 
Women are making a difference in 2018 by supporting the women that inspire them through the challenging work of staffing campaigns. In a story about young women running campaigns in 2018,  The New York Times says that 40% of campaign managers in Democratic races this year are women, while Elite Daily ran a story this year about historical disparities in campaign staffing- and how that's changing. How can you get involved? Ready to Run® will host a campaign training workshop on Saturday, October 20th from 9am to 3:30pm at the Eagleton Institute of Politics in New Brunswick. The workshop, "Political Campaigns for Career Women: An Operative's Guide to the Industry", will be presented by strategic communications expert Eva Pusateri, and provides an introduction to fast-paced, exciting political careers many people don't even know exist. Whether you aim to support candidates, issues, or your political party, you can turn your enthusiasm into a power career.






Previously on News & Notes

Remember when  we said there was a chance that the record for women state legislative nominees might be broken following the Alaska and Wyoming primaries? We were right . The new record for state legislative nominees is 2,825, up from a previous record of 2,649, set in 2016. See these and other 2018 records via our Election Watch summary page .

The last CAWP newsletter also talked about the record number of races that will feature women as both major-party nominees . That record has gone up again following primaries in Florida and Arizona. In Arizona, Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema clinched their respective nominations for U.S. Senate, and this particular woman vs. woman race has additional significance: it all but guarantees that Arizona will seat its first woman senator in 2018. On CNN , Kyung Lah talked to CAWP's Kelly Dittmar about the McSally/Sinema race, and Dittmar emphasized the highly gendered attack ad that McSally launched against Sinema, which contrasted McSally's combat experience with images of Sinema at an anti-war protest in a pink tutu. One struggles to imagine a more perfect proving of Dittmar's recent analysis " Gender Neutrality in All-Female (or All-Male) Contests is a Myth."

Potpourri

Pew Research Center  released new polling showing that the majority of Americans believe that electing more women for Congress would be a good thing. 61% of all adults believe this would be a good thing, while 33% believe it would be neither good nor bad. 5% of American adults believe, somehow, that electing more women would be a bad thing.

Last week was the 98th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, and both The Bergen Record and the Terre Haute Tribune-Star turned to CAWP for comment in stories marking the anniversary.

On Monday, September 10th, Higher Heights for America will host an event titled "Claiming Seats at the Table: Black Women's Electoral Strength in an Era of Fractured Politics", which will feature analysis from Andre Perry about women political leaders and the strength of the Black electorate, as well as a panel discussion featuring current and former Black women elected leaders. Registration for the event is open now.

As primary season winds down, the disparity between the Democratic and Republican parties in the number of women seeking and winning nominations has remained a topic of interest for journalists. For Salon Amanda Marcotte writes about the structural difficulties women in conservative politics face, while The Hill points out the GOP women could actually see their representation in Congress decrease
in 2018.

Sixty Years of Service

Last week, Senator John McCain passed away after a yearlong battle with cancer, leaving behind a legacy of service to a country he dearly loved. Prior to the announcement of former Senator Jon Kyl's appointment, rumors mounted that Arizona Governor Doug Ducey might appoint Cindy McCain to her departed husband's seat, and several news organizations turned to CAWP for context on the topic of widow succession. 
Newsweek  pulled quotes from Debbie Walsh in a story about the history of the practice, while Teen Vogue  talked to Walsh about these appointments both historically and in the present. TIME magazine used CAWP's fact sheet on widow succession for context in an interview with Mary Bono, who won a special election to fill the House seat of her husband, Sonny, before eventually serving seven additional terms in Congress. Though Cindy McCain didn't end up with the appointment, she isn't the only woman in the McCain family with power and promise. The New York Times described Meghan McCain as "forged in her father's image" as she eulogized her father in a passionate defense of American greatness and idealism.

We live in a tumultuous time. A time of great trouble, yes, but also of great promise, as we here at CAWP see every day. The closing lines of John McCain's farewell to the nation remind us of that promise:

"Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with the heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening.

I feel it powerfully still.

Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.

Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless America."

Center for American Women and Politics
Eagleton Institute of Politics
Rutgers University | New Brunswick
191 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8557
(848) 932-9384 - Fax: (732) 932-6778