Live Twitter Chat @TempleUnivPress on Gender and Political Campaigns

@TempleUnivPress will host its first live Twitter Chat on February 20 from 12noon – 1:00 pm EST.  This week in North Philly Notes, Kelly Dittmar, author of Navigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns, previews her upcoming Live Twitter Chat and the participants.

The topic under discussion is:  Will a woman run for president in 2016? If so, what role might gender play in her campaign or the campaigns of her opponents?

In my book, Navigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns, I argue that campaigns are gendered institutions where political candidates – men and women – are expected to adapt to the gendered rules of the game. For male candidates, stereotypic expectations of gender (masculinity) and candidacy coincide, while women candidates are expected to meet often disparate voter expectations of both femininity and candidacy. As a result, men and women candidates navigate differently gendered terrain en route to Election Day.

Male and female candidates typically navigate this terrain under the guidance of campaign professionals – practitioners and consultants who make their livings by planning, running, and advising campaigns. In Navigating Gendered Terrain, I survey and interview these political practitioners to better understand the ways in which gender informs campaign strategy and decision-making, noting that their perceptions of voters’ gender expectations often inform the ways in which they run campaigns. Moreover, the strategic and tactical decisions they make matter beyond winning or losing; they also have the potential to replicate or disrupt gender norms in electoral politics.

On Friday, February 20^th (12pm-1pm ET), I will be joined by the following experts in a Twitter chat about gender and political campaigns. Veteran political consultants Christine Matthews (Partner, Burning Glass Consulting) and Martha McKenna (Partner, McKenna Pihlaja), as well as Debbie Walsh (Director, Center for American Women and Politics) will lead a conversation about how gender informs campaign strategy, how voters perceive male and female candidates, how strategy informs voters’ gender expectations, and what this all means for women running for and winning elective office. Please join us in this Twitter chat, hosted by Temple University Press (@TempleUnivPress), by following the Twitter handles listed here and using the hashtag #genderpolitics.

The participants include:

• Christine Matthews (@cmatthewspolls) is President of Bellwether Research and Partner at Burning Glass Consulting. She has been conducting public opinion research for over twenty years at her own firm and as a partner at other top Republican polling firms. She served as an advisor for both Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels’ campaigns, including his re-election against a Democratic woman candidate in which he won 56% of women. In 2014, Campaigns & Elections magazine named Christine as one of their top 50 influencers shaping campaigns and the future of the industry.
• Martha McKenna (@mmckenn) is a partner in the Democratic political media-consulting firm McKenna Pihlaja. Recently named one of Campaigns & Elections magazine’s “Influencers to Watch in 2014,” she has been integral to Senate gains made by Democrats over the last 3 cycles. After a decade of work with EMILY’s List, Martha successfully engineered U.S. Senate campaigns for Democratic candidates as the political director at the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. She then ran the DSCC’s Independent Expenditure operation in 2012 through her consulting firm. Martha is also the co-founder of Emerge Maryland, an organization for Democratic women seeking state and local office.
• Debbie Walsh (@debbiewalsh58) is director of the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. She joined the CAWP staff in 1981. As director of the Center, she oversees CAWP’s research, education and public service programs. She is frequently called upon by the media for information and comment and speaks to a variety of audiences around the country on topics related to women’s political participation. First as director of CAWP’s Program for Women Public Officials and now as the Center’s director, Walsh has led the Center’s extensive work with women officeholders and organized more than a dozen national conferences for women officials.
• Kelly Dittmar (@kdittmar) is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University–Camden and Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She is the author of Navigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns (Temple University Press, 2015), as well as multiple book chapters on gender and American politics. Her esearch focuses on gender and American political institutions with a particular focus on how gender informs campaigns and the impact of gender diversity among elites in policy and political decisions, priorities, and processes.  In addition to her academic work, Kelly works with CAWP’s programs for women’s public leadership and has been an expert source and commentator for media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, Huffington Post, and the Washington Post.

Honoring Nancy Hogshead-Makar, the International Olympic Committee’s Woman of the Year

This week in North Philly Notes, Nancy Hogshead-Makar, co-editor of Equal Play, responds to being named the 2014 Woman of the Year by the International Olympic Committee.

The International Olympic Committee presented the 2014 Women & Sports Trophy for the Americas to Nancy Hogshead-Makar during the general assembly in Monaco. Hogshead-Makar was recognized for her life-long advocacy for access and equality in athletics, and her legal expertise on women’s sports issues. Hogshead-Makar is a scholar, frequent speaker, and winner of three Gold Medals in swimming in the 1984 Olympics. She is the co-author of Equal Play; Title IX and Social Change, with Andrew Zimbalist.

The Trophy came with $37,000 in prize money for a project that will forward women’s sports issues. Hogshead-Makar will create an on-line training platform for Title IX education, specifically targeted towards coaches. Additional on-line training programs on legal issues involving women and sports are expected later in 2015, including sports administrators, families and law school students.

In 2014, Hogshead-Makar launched Champion Women to lead targeted efforts to aggressively advocate for equality, with expertise in topics include sport access and equal treatment, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and assault, employment and pregnancy and legal enforcement under Title IX and the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act.

Hogshead-Makar has testified in Congress numerous times on the topic of gender equity in athletics, written numerous scholarly and lay articles, and has been a frequent guest on national news programs on the topic, including 60 Minutes, Fox News, CNN, ESPN, NPR, MSNBC and network morning news programming. She serves as an expert witness in Title IX cases, has written amicus briefs representing athletic organizations in precedent-setting litigation, and has organized numerous sign-on position statements for sports governing bodies. From 2003 – 2012 she was the Co-Chair of American Bar Association Committee on the Rights of Women. Sports Illustrated Magazine listed her as one of the most influential people in the history of Title IX.

Hogshead-Makar said,

“Winning this award from the International Olympic Committee is as meaningful and powerful as the day I touched the wall in 1984 to win a gold medal. The men and women of the IOC are using the Olympic platform to enhance gender equity globally – throughout society. The stand they’re taking is changing the world; women’s sports participation breaks down stereotypes that hold women back.

Of course there are hundreds of people I’ve worked with shoulder-to-shoulder that I’d like to thank, but in particular I’d like to thank Scott Blackmun, CEO of the USOC for nominating me, Duke Professor Jean O’Barr for inspiring me intellectually, Anita DeFrantz, IOC Executive Board Member for supporting me, and Donna de Varona, 1964 Olympic for sparking this pursuit in my heart back in 1984.”

Remembering the absences of history

This week in North Philly Notes, Roger Aden, author of Upon the Ruins of Liberty, writes about how absences in history can yield surprising tensions and stories.

I was reading a story the other day about a former college basketball coach who had in his possession an immensely valuable historical document: the text used by Martin Luther King, Jr. when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the Washington Mall in 1963. Stunningly, the most memorable portion of the speech did not appear in the text. Instead of concluding his remarks as planned, King both ad-libbed and drew upon previous orations as he shared his dream with the nation. The coach’s prized possession thus gains much of its symbolic power not just from its provenance, but also from the striking absence of language that still resonates in memory half a century later.

Our nation’s stories are full of absences. While we rightfully treasure historical artifacts in which powerful remnants of the past are embedded, we also tightly grasp the stories, memories, and events which remain meaningful to us even if we have few, if any, physical reminders of them. That’s what makes the stories of the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park so compelling for me. Here, on the front porch of a new building dedicated to remembering and displaying one of our nation’s most treasured historical icons (the Liberty Bell), and less than a block away from a colonial-era structure in which the Declaration of Independence was approved, lies the site in which the revered George Washington dodged Pennsylvania law to ensure that the enslaved Africans toiling in the executive mansion in Philadelphia remained in bondage to him and his wife. We have little physical evidence about the lives of those enslaved Africans nor have we historically devoted many resources to telling the stories of any enslaved Africans in the national commemorative landscape, yet those stories have nonetheless lingered on the periphery of national memory. The excavation of these stories at the President’s House provided powerful reminders that the seemingly absent is always present and that our national embrace of liberty was imperfectly enacted—even in its birthplace.

In Upon the Ruins of Liberty, I explore how this tension between absences and presences manifested itself throughout the development of the site. From the park’s initial reluctance to disrupt its relatively seamless stories of the triumph of liberty and the potency of American exceptionalism, to the dedicated efforts of historians, community activists, and dedicated political leaders to give a presence to the stories of liberty denied, even the initial controversy about how to handle Edward Lawler, Jr.’s discoveries about the site and all of its inhabitants sparked a great deal of soul-searching about the inclusion and exclusion of stories in the park, the commemorative landscape, and the nation’s history. Both the inertia of history and the passion of those whose stories have lingered on the edges of that history starkly emerged in the early stages of the controversy about what to do with Lawler’s revelations.

Nor did the inertia and passion dissipate during, and ever after, the completion of the first federal site dedicated to telling the stories of slavery. Every step in the project’s development—deciding what to do at the site, picking a design for a memorial installation, revising that design after the surprising results of an excavation revealed remnants of the original structure, and telling the stories within the design—featured discussions about how to make present, in the national historical park nicknamed “the cradle of liberty,” the absences of the past. I explore those tensions in Upon the Ruins of Liberty, while drawing upon the insights of those intimately involved with the project and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering which led to the site’s development as it stands today. And, because the stories of history are always open-ended, I illustrate how the completed site remains a place of controversy because of what it includes and excludes in its telling of history. The President’s House site and, I hope, the book which tells the story of its development prod us to remember that the absences of history are not forgotten, but nor are they easily integrated into narratives which possess the inertia of centuries of sharing. The story of the quest for liberty in America, as Dr. King reminded us, is a story we should continue to embrace, while we also work to make present and remember all such quests pursued by the people of the United States.

Honoring the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This week in North Philly Notes,  we highlight ten Temple University Press titles that reflect the values and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery by Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer

In their pioneering book, Envisioning Emancipation, renowned photographic historian Deborah Willis and historian of slavery Barbara Krauthamer have amassed 150 photographs—some never before published—from the antebellum days of the 1850s through the New Deal era of the 1930s. The authors vividly display the seismic impact of emancipation on African Americans born before and after the Proclamation, providing a perspective on freedom and slavery and a way to understand the photos as documents of engagement, action, struggle, and aspiration.

Upon the Ruins of Liberty: Slavery, the President’s House at Independence National Historical Park, and Public Memory by Roger C. Aden

The 2002 revelation at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park that George Washington kept slaves in his executive mansion in the 1790s prompted an eight-year controversy about the role of slavery in America’s commemorative landscape. When the President’s House installation opened in 2010, it became the first federal property to feature a slave memorial.

In Upon the Ruins of Liberty, Roger Aden offers a compelling account that explores the development of this important historic site and the intersection of contemporary racial politics with history, space, and public memory.

Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America by Daniel R. Biddle and Murray Dubin

Octavius Valentine Catto was a civil rights pioneer who risked his life a century before the events that took place in Selma and Birmingham. In Tasting Freedom Daniel Biddle (winner of the Pulitzer Prize) and Murray Dubin painstakingly chronicle the life of this charismatic black leader—a “free” black man whose freedom was in name only. Catto electrified a biracial audience in 1864 when he called on free men and women to act and to educate the newly freed slaves, proclaiming, “There must come a change.” With a group of other African Americans who called themselves a “band of brothers,” he challenged one injustice after another. Tasting Freedom presents the little-known stories of Catto and the men and women who struggled to change America. This book will change your understanding of civil rights history.

Philadelphia Freedoms: Black American Trauma, Memory, and Culture after King by Michael Awkward

Philadelphia Freedoms captures the disputes over the meanings of racial politics and black identity during the post-King era in the City of Brotherly Love. Looking closely at four cultural moments, he shows how racial trauma and his native city’s history have been entwined. Awkward introduces each of these moments with poignant personal memories of the decade in focus, chronicling the representation of African American freedom and oppression from the 1960s to the 1990s. Awkward closes his examination of racial trauma and black identity with a discussion of candidate Barack Obama’s speech on race at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center, pointing to the conflict between the nation’s ideals and the racial animus that persists even into the second term of America’s first black president.

Tensions in the American Dream: Rhetoric, Reverie, or Reality by Melanie E.L. Bush and Roderick Bush 

Could the promise of upward mobility have a dark side? In Tensions in the American Dream, Melanie and Roderick Bush ask, “How does a ‘nation of immigrants’ pledge inclusion yet marginalize so many citizens on the basis of race, class, and gender?” The authors consider the origins and development of the U.S. nation and empire; the founding principles of belonging, nationalism, and exceptionalism; and the lived reality of these principles.

Tensions in the American Dream also addresses the relevancy of nation to empire in the context of the historical world capitalist system. The authors ask, “Is the American Dream a reality questioned only by those unwilling or unable to achieve it? What is the ‘good life,’ and how is it particularly ‘American’?”

Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion by Bettye Collier-Thomas

Jesus, Jobs, and Justice provides a remarkable account of the religious faith, social and political activism, and extraordinary resilience of black women during the centuries of American growth and change. As co-creators of churches, women were a central factor in their development and as Collier-Thomas skillfully shows black church women created national organizations such as the National Association of Colored Women, the National League of Colored Republican Women, and the National Council of Negro Women to fight for civil rights and combat discrimination. While religion has been a guiding force in the lives of most African Americans, for black women it has been essential. Jesus, Jobs, and Justice restores black women to their rightful place in American and black history and demonstrates their faith in themselves, their race, and their God.

From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism by Patricia Hill Collins

Despite legislation designed to eliminate unfair racial practices, the United States continues to struggle with a race problem. Some thinkers label this a “new” racism and call for new political responses to it. Using the experiences of African American women and men as a touchstone for analysis, Patricia Hill Collins examines new forms of racism as well as political responses to it.

In this incisive and stimulating book, renowned social theorist Patricia Hill Collins investigates how nationalism has operated and re-emerged in the wake of contemporary globalization and offers an interpretation of how black nationalism works today in the wake of changing black youth identity. Hers is the first study to analyze the interplay of racism, nationalism, and feminism in the context of twenty-first century black America.

The African American Jeremiad: Appeals for Justice in America by David Howard-Pitney

Begun by Puritans, the American jeremiad, a rhetoric that expresses indignation and urges social change, has produced passionate and persuasive essays and speeches throughout the nation’s history. Showing that black leaders have employed this verbal tradition of protest and social prophecy in a way that is specifically African American, David Howard-Pitney examines the jeremiads of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, as well as more contemporary figures such as Jesse Jackson and Alan Keyes. This revised and expanded edition demonstrates that the African American jeremiad is still vibrant, serving as a barometer of faith in America’s perfectibility and hope for social justice.

A City within a City: The Black  Freedom Struggle in Grand Rapids, Michigan by Todd E. Robinson

A City within a City examines the civil rights movement in the North by concentrating on the struggles for equality in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Historian Todd Robinson studies the issues surrounding school integration and bureaucratic reforms as well as the role of black youth activism to detail the diversity of black resistance. He focuses on respectability within the African American community as a way of understanding how the movement was formed and held together. And he elucidates the oppositional role of northern conservatives regarding racial progress.

Black Power Ideologies: An Essay in African American Political Thought by John T. McCartney

In a systematic survey of the manifestations and meaning of Black Power in America, John McCartney analyzes the ideology of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s and places it in the context of both African-American and Western political thought. Focusing on the intense legal activity of the NAACP from the 1930s to the 1960s, McCartney gives extensive treatment to the moral and political leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., and his challenge from the Black Power Movement in 1966.