Women Embrace Their Own Campaign Narrative

There has been a recent spate of media stories about women seizing control of their own campaign narratives and breaking free from the consultant-driven constrictions that have typically steered women candidacies. The Washington Post takes a look at the power of the viral video to elevate lesser-known women candidates this year, highlighting ads from candidates like M.J. Hegar, Amy McGrath, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others that tie an inspirational hook from the candidate's biography to a conversation about concrete policy priorities. The New York Times, meanwhile, focuses on a number of women around the country throwing out the "put on a suit and recite their résumé - and smile" rulebook for women candidates by showing voters a fuller-- and more authentic-- version of themselves. In a related video, the Times's Kate Zernike says that "a shift in the way women can campaign really means, ultimately, a shift in the way we view our leaders." From NBC, we see women discussing their experiences with sexual harassment and abuse. By standing up and continuing the conversation around the #MeToo movement, women candidates are, again, reconstructing what it means to be a candidate in 2018.

 

Hands on the Rudder

Women are re-defining what it means to be a woman and a candidate, but how does increasing women's representation affect the way governance is conducted? 

For Reuters , Charlotte Greenfield goes on a global tour of legislatures to examine how greater numbers of mothers of young children serving in office are changing the rules of legislative bodies to be more accommodating to the necessities of parenthood, including the U.S. Senate's new rule allowing infants on the floor of the chamber. Senator Tammy Duckworth, who pushed for that change after the birth of her daughter, spoke with Marie Claire about the challenge women face in weighing their careers and their families, legislation to establish a family leave system in the United States, and the media scrum around the birth of her child. "We've got to get to a point where it doesn't raise eyebrows to have someone give birth in office," Senator Duckworth says, "Just like it shouldn't raise eyebrows to have a woman be a senator or a woman in the cockpit or a woman in the boardroom."

Bustle, meanwhile, examines how women politicians govern differently from their male counterparts. Women office-holders tend to secure more funding for their districts, sponsor more legislation, have different policy priorities, and are more eager to work across party lines in order to accomplish their goals. These findings are consistent with CAWP's research on women in Congress, which you can find in our Representation Matters report and in a forthcoming book from CAWP scholars titled A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen's Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters (Pre-order today!). As Jane Timken, the first woman chair of the Ohio Republican Party, puts it in a Plain Dealer article about her desire to recruit more women candidates: "Women just tend to cut through the baloney and just get things done."