Celebrating Women’s History Month

This week in North Philly Notes, we celebrate Women’s History Month with a selection of recent, forthcoming, and classic Women’s Studies titles. Take 20% off our Women’s Studies titles this month using the code TWHM23 at checkout! And view all of our Women’s Studies titles here.

New and recent titles

Gendered Places: The Landscape of Local Gender Norms across the United States, by William J. Scarborough

Every place has its quirky attributes, cultural reputation, and distinctive flair. But when we travel across America, do we also experience distinct gender norms and expectations? In his groundbreaking Gendered Places, William Scarborough examines metropolitan commuting zones to see how each region’s local culture reflects gender roles and gender equity.

Ethical Encounters: Transnational Feminism, Human Rights, and War Cinema in Bangladesh, by Elora Halim Chowdhury

Ethical Encounters is an exploration of the intersection of feminism, human rights, and memory to illuminate how visual practices of recollecting violent legacies in Bangladeshi cinema can conjure a global cinematic imagination for the advancement of humanity. By examining contemporary, women-centered Muktijuddho cinema—features and documentaries that focus on the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971—Elora Chowdhury shows how these films imagine, disrupt, and reinscribe a gendered nationalist landscape of trauma, freedom, and agency.

Are You Two Sisters?: The Journey of a Lesbian Couple, by Susan Krieger

Are You Two Sisters? is Susan Krieger’s candid, revealing, and engrossing memoir about the intimacies of a lesbian couple. Krieger explores how she and her partner confront both the inner challenges of their relationship and the invisibility of lesbian identity in the larger world. Using a lively novelistic and autoethnographic approach that toggles back and forth in time, Krieger reflects on the evolution of her forty-year relationship.

Feminist Reflections on Childhood: A History and Call to Action, by Penny A. Weiss

In Feminist Reflections on Childhood, Penny Weiss rediscovers the radically feminist tradition of advocating for the liberatory treatment of youth. Weiss looks at both historical and contemporary feminists to understand what issues surrounding the inequality experienced by both women and children were important to the authors as feminist activists and thinkers. She uses the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Simone de Beauvoir to show early feminist arguments for the improved status and treatment of youth. Weiss also shows how Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a socialist feminist, and Emma Goldman, an anarchist feminist, differently understood and re-visioned children’s lives, as well as how children continue to show up on feminist agendas and in manifestos that demand better conditions for children’s lives.

Women’s Empowerment and Disempowerment in Brazil The Rise and Fall of President Dilma Rousseff, by Pedro A. G. dos Santos and Farida Jalalzai

In 2010, Dilma Rousseff was the first woman to be elected President in Brazil. She was re-elected in 2014 before being impeached in 2016 for breaking budget laws. Her popularity and controversy both energized and polarized the country. In Women’s Empowerment and Disempowerment in Brazil, dos Santos and Jalalzai examine Rousseff’s presidency and what it means for a woman to hold (and lose) the country’s highest power. The authors examine the ways Rousseff exercised dominant authority and enhanced women’s political empowerment. They also investigate the extent her gender played a role in the events of her presidency, including the political and economic crises and her ensuing impeachment.

Motherlands: How States Push Mothers Out of Employment, by Leah Ruppanner

In the absence of federal legislation, each state in the United States has its own policies regarding family leave, job protection for women, and childcare. No wonder working mothers encounter such a significant disparity when it comes to childcare resources in America! Whereas conservative states like Nebraska offer affordable, readily available, and high quality childcare, progressive states that advocate for women’s economic and political power, like California, have expensive childcare, shorter school days, and mothers who are more likely to work part-time or drop out of the labor market altogether to be available for their children. In Motherlands, Leah Ruppanner cogently argues that states should look to each other to fill their policy voids. 

Good Reasons to Run: Women and Political Candidacy, edited by Shauna L. Shames, Rachel I. Bernhard, Mirya R. Holman, and Dawn Langan Teele

After the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, a large cohort of women emerged to run for office. Their efforts changed the landscape of candidates and representation. However, women are still far less likely than men to seek elective office, and face biases and obstacles in campaigns. (Women running for Congress make twice as many phone calls as men to raise the same contributions.) The editors and contributors to Good Reasons to Run, a mix of scholars and practitioners, examine the reasons why women run—and do not run—for political office. They focus on the opportunities, policies, and structures that promote women’s candidacies. How do nonprofits help recruit and finance women as candidates? And what role does money play in women’s campaigns?

Forthcoming this Spring

Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors, edited by Sharon D. Wright Austin

Political Black Girl Magic explores black women’s experiences as mayors in American cities. The editor and contributors to this comprehensive volume examine black female mayoral campaigns and elections where race and gender are a factor—and where deracialized campaigns have garnered candidate support from white as well as Hispanic and Asian American voters. Chapters also consider how Black female mayors govern, from discussions of their pursuit of economic growth and how they use their power to enact positive reforms to the challenges they face that inhibit their abilities to cater to neglected communities.

Solidarity & Care: Domestic Worker Activism in New York City, by Alana Lee Glaser

The members of the Domestic Workers United (DWU) organization—immigrant women of color employed as nannies, caregivers, and housekeepers in New York City—formed to fight for dignity and respect and to “bring meaningful change” to their work. Alana Lee Glaser examines the process of how these domestic workers organized against precarity, isolation, and exploitation to help pass the 2010 New York State Domestic Worker Bill of Rights, the first labor law in the United States protecting in-home workers.

Classic Titles

Gross Misbehavior and Wickedness: A Notorious Divorce in Early Twentieth-Century America, by Jean Elson

The bitter and public court battle waged between Nina and James Walker of Newport, Rhode Island, from 1909 to 1916 created a sensation throughout the nation, with lurid accounts of their marital troubles fueling widespread gossip. The ordeal of this high-society couple, who wed as much for status as for love, is one of the prime examples of the growing trend of women seeking divorce during the early twentieth century. Gross Misbehavior and Wickedness—which takes its title from the charges Nina levied against James for his adultery (with the family governess) and extreme cruelty—recounts the protracted legal proceedings in juicy detail.

Fireweed: A Political Autobiography, by Gerda Lerner

In Fireweed, Gerda Lerner, a pioneer and leading scholar in women’s history, tells her story of moral courage and commitment to social change with a novelist’s skill and a historian’s command of context. Lerner’s memoir focuses on the formative experiences that made her an activist for social justice before her academic career began. Lerner insists that her decades of grassroots organizing largely account for the theoretical insights she was later able to bring to the development of women’s history.

Can Vets win more votes? Depends on when and where

This week in North Philly Notes, Jeremy Teigen, author of Why Veterans Run, penned an essay on the recent victory by Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania.

Democrats’ victory in Pennsylvania’s special congressional election last week made great waves in the media for a few reasons. Primarily, news cycles focus on special elections as a barometer of national sentiment, though their ability to predict the future should be viewed with care. Yet, the race between Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania grabbed my attention for another reason. Both candidates served in the armed forces.

Saccone, 60, served in U.S. Air Force counterintelligence units. The much younger Lamb was a JAG in the Marine Corps. While neither are combat veterans, both served as officers. Both campaign websites featured the candidates’ military experience on online bios while media accounts of the candidates frequently referred to their service. A typical example: “While Saccone has a compelling biography—like Lamb, he served in the military—the outside groups have found that introducing him to voters …has proven challenging.” Other headlines focused specifically on the fact that two veterans vied for the seat despite declining numbers of veterans in the electorate.

This 2018 special election in Pennsylvania’s 18^th district is not the first time that an off-schedule congressional election attracted national media attention in part because of a candidate’s military service record. In southwestern Ohio near Cincinnati (a city named for a very notable military veteran), a 2005 U.S. House special election featured a Democrat with Iraq War experience who sought to occupy a vacancy. Paul Hackett lost by a whisker, but he outperformed the baseline partisanship of the district substantially. At one point he called President George W. Bush a “chickenhawk” for avoiding Vietnam in the 1960s, which implicitly highlighted his own time as a U.S. Marine in war. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry had only earned about 35% of the district’s presidential votes the year before, but Hackett put some fear in GOP hearts by almost upsetting expectations with over 48% of the vote. Had he won, he would have been the first OIF veteran congressman.

Lamb also outperformed the baseline partisanship of his district last week. Donald Trump exceeded Hillary Clinton’s support by 20% in 2016 in PA-18 while Barack Obama trailed Mitt Romney in 2012 by similar margins. That makes it clear that Lamb was able to persuade independents and perhaps some Republicans to vote for him, in addition to raising far more funds than Saccone. Despite a last-minute campaign assist from President Trump himself, Saccone underperformed in GOP-friendly territory. Trump specifically commended Saccone’s Air Force service on his visit.

Having two veterans run against each other in House contests is not common. In my book, Why Veterans Run: Military Service in American Presidential Elections, 1789-2016, I compiled a decades’ worth of House election data to see if there is a quantifiable advantage that veterans enjoy at the ballot box. Looking only at the 315 contests in 2016 where there was a Republican and a Democrat in the race (omitting California and the other states with “top two” primaries), only 14 featured a general election with two veterans running against each other. But what really matters is where and in which districts parties choose to nominate military veterans.

Democrats won a special election with a veteran in a competitive but GOP-leaning district in the heart of where Trump was able to carve out an Electoral College win in 2016. If Democrats are hoping to retake the House this November, and aiming to do it with veterans, they need to nominate veterans in purple districts rather than in longshot races. While this week’s special election is atypical because it was an open seat, we can look to a normal cycle of House elections and look for military experience patterns among each party’s challengers.

As I wrote last year, Democrats do not have a track record of nominating veterans in places where they can beat incumbent Republicans.  In 2016, Democrats tended to nominate veterans in uphill races. Democratic nonveteran challengers ran in districts where Obama’s votes averaged 42.3%, but in races where Democrats nominated a veteran, Obama’s support was more than three points lower. In contrast, Republicans in 2016 nominated their veteran challengers in friendlier territory.

Signs look good for the Democrats going into the 2018 regularly scheduled midterms. And early signs show that Democratic veterans are emerging in more competitive places compared to two years ago. If challengers such as Mikie Sherrill, a female Naval Academy grad and pilot in the very purple NJ-11 district, represent a new strategy for Democrats, the success they have with veterans will mark a change from the past.

Jeremy M. Teigen, Professor of Political Science at Ramapo College (@ProfTeigen)