"The Hidden Sexism that Could Sway the Election" --PBS Newshour

Hey All, 

I found this article a while back regarding the not-so-hidden sexism in the election. The article, unlike others which offer similar claims, highlights the principles of Social Psychology. The first is the "theory of ambivalent sexism" which helps illustrate why men's (and women's) subconscious bias is geared against Clinton, or any woman, as Commander in Chief. A study conducted by social psychologist Peter Glick and his colleagues. They came up with two distinct categories: the first is "hostile sexism," overtly negative views about women; and “benevolent” sexism: "positive attitudes and actions which men take toward women that are based, deep-down, in feelings of superiority and dominance." Glick stated that: “Men have ambivalent attitudes toward women that are prejudiced and paternalistic, but that are also based on love and interdependence.”

Other theories of gender based sexism and discrimination, especially evident with Clinton's historic campaign has to do with violation of gender norms. Women who are viewed in traditionally masculine lights (eg. being "aggressive" or competitive, or self promotional) receive backlash from both men and women for violating gender-based and societal norms.  “The more female politicians are seen as striving for power, the less they’re trusted and the more moral outrage gets directed at them,” said Terri Vescio, a psychology professor at Penn State who studies gender bias. “You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” she continued. “If you’re perceived as competent, you’re not perceived as warm. But if you’re liked and trusted, you’re not seen as competent.”

Check out the full PBS article here!: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/hidden-sexism/

Comparing Representation of Women in National Assemblies

Shout out to Lauren for a great post on gender in the ongoing U.S. Senate races. It made me think about a website (hosted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union) that I came across a few years ago in the course of research. It compares most of the governments in the world, providing the percentage of women in each country's legislative body (usually an upper house like the Senate and a lower house like the House of Representatives). It's a little disheartening to see that the U.S. is relatively low on the list, but that is due in large part to the fact that many countries have quotas of women for any given ballot.

link here: http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm

***I'm not sure if this link is under maintenance right now. If it doesn't work, here is the link for regional comparisons: http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm

Gender Parity / Senate races!

As Professor Selig mentioned in class, there are lots of fascinating non-presidential races going on all around the country. This whole business of "flipping the Senate" to turn Democratic is a huge deal, and it's really going to boil down to Senate races in about seven states. I've been following quite a few of them, and it's absolutely fascinating to watch the polls vacillate between R and D on a nearly daily basis.

As we know, the Senate has 100 seats, two for each state, and each senator's term lasts 6 years. Whereas representatives are up for reelection every single two-year term, senators are ranked into three classes that put about one-third of them up for re-election every two years. The current Senate is made up of 46 Dems (technically 45 + Bernie Sanders, an Independent) and 54 Reps, so the GOP controls the Senate. Typically, the president's party loses seats in a midterm election, which happened to a fairly damaging extent in 2014, when the Democrats lost control of the Senate.

In the 2016 election, all 34 senators in "Class 3" are up for reelection. If the Democrats want to flip the Senate, they'll need to secure 51 seats, some way or another. Let's see the breakdown of what's likely to happen (here's a fun interactive map):

• 30 Republican senators are not up for reelection, and they're fairly likely to win 14 of the seats that are up for reelection, giving the GOP a safe total of 44.
  
• 34 Democratic and 2 D-leaning independent senators are not up for reelection, and they're fairly likely to win 9 of the seats that are up for reelection, giving the Dems a safe total of 45.
  
• This leaves us with 11 contested or toss-up races. Dems need to win 6/11 to flip the Senate, or Republicans need to win 7/11 to maintain control.
  
• Nevada: Senate minority leader Harry Reid is retiring, and hand-picked a successor, former AG of Nevada Catherine Cortez Masto. This one flips almost every week, Masto against Republican Joe Heck.
  
• Arizona: My home state and an election I am heavily invested in! Guess who's up—the one, the only, John McCain, against longtime U.S. Representative, Democratic Ann Kirkpatrick. Ann has represented Arizona's District 1, a huge area that encompasses many low-income, Native American, and minority areas, and she's done a great job at it. She's a rather center-left candidate, which makes her appeal to more than just hard Dems, but John McCain is a beloved Arizona institution. He's leading by a lot right now, but we'll just have to see!
  
• Wisconsin: Dems have a lot of hope to gain a seat here, with Russ Feingold (D) against Ron Johnson (R).
  
• Missouri: Democrat and current Missouri SecState Jason Kander is challenging incumbent Republican Roy Blunt. Dems probably won't have a lot of luck here, since MO is usually red in federal elections and is a fairly strong Trump state right now. Still, the fact that this is even a tossup election is pretty remarkable!
  
• Illinois: Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat and current U.S. Representative (and the first disabled woman in Congress - she was injured while serving as a helicopter pilot in the Iraq War) is running against incumbent Mark Kirk (R).
  
• Indiana: Republican senator Dan Coats is retiring, so the former Democrat governor of Indiana, Evan Bayh, wants to step in to replace him. However, current U.S. Representative Todd Young (R) has received lots of money from outside groups to challenge Bayh. This one has been a tossup only since September, when Bayh was clearly leading before that.
  
• Ohio: Although it's fairly clear now that Rob Portman, the Republican incumbent, is going to win the Ohio seat by about 16 points, he and Democrat Ted Strickland were basically neck and neck in June and July.
  
• Pennsylvania: Incumbent Republican Pat Toomey against Democrat Katie McGinty. This one's really close, but an interesting facet that might give McGinty the lead is that Clinton has a five point lead in PA.
  
• North Carolina: Team Clinton is heavily funding former ACLU lawyer Democrat Deborah Ross, who is facing off against incumbent Republican Richard Burr.
  
• Florida: Guess who could potentially be losing in Senate seat this year? That's right, it's Marco Rubio! Current Democrat Representative Patrick Murphy is challenging him, but it's not likely that Rubio will be defeated.
  
• New Hampshire: This is a fascinating race because it's the only tossup contest between two women! Incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte faces current Democratic Governor of NH, Maggie Hassan. When I was talking about races that keep flipping back and forth almost on a daily basis, I was basically talking about this one. 

One thing that I've noticed when researching and following these races is that there are several women up for election. It was even kind of historic when California's Senate race came down to two female Democrats, even though California has had women senators for a long time now. I did a little bit of searching on women in the Senate and found this thought-provoking yet ultimately disheartening article from Five Thirty Eight about gender parity in the Senate. There are currently 20 female senators, but even with current growth rates being exponential, 538 predicts that gender parity will probably occur around 2043. Sad! 

P.S. Does anyone know the name of the first female senator? 

(I didn't! "The first woman senator, Rebecca Felton, served in 1922 (for a single day), but the first woman elected to the Senate was Hattie Caraway in 1932." - from Wikipedia.) 

Does Donald Trump Talk Like a Woman?

Fascinating read from Politico about Donald's speech and linguistic patterns, and how his manner of talking often resembles a woman's. The article also mentions a political psychologist who has indexed 35 political candidates over the last 10 years by how "masculine" or "feminine" their speech is. (In case you were wondering, Trump is the most feminine-speaking candidate, and Jim Webb—remember him?—is the most masculine-speaking candidate.)

Here are the features that the author mentions give Trump more feminine speech. She also notes that this analysis is not what Trump talks about, it's how he says it.

• Heavier use of the pronoun "I" rather than "we."
• More frequent use of emotion-laden descriptive words, such as "phenomenal," "disgusting," "beautiful," "despise." 
• Less frequent use of long words in speech and writing.

Here's the Politico article: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/trump-feminine-speaking-style-214391

And here's a short but effective rebuttal from Vox: http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/10/27/13437050/donald-trump-linguistics-politico-female

Women Activists in Poland- Feminism as a Political Movement

Here is a link to a news story about women activists and their protests in Poland. They are continuing their protest against the extremely strict abortion laws in very Catholic Poland that was successful on 'Black Monday' earlier this month (for more information on Black Monday: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37540139). 

For this protest, "women also stayed away from work and school and refused to do domestic chores, in a protest inspired by a women's strike in Iceland in 1975." I think that this is a significant news story on its own, as these women are undoubtedly making history, and the demonstration of solidarity in this strike is inspiring. 


However, it is also interesting in relation to Caitlyn's post about feminism as a political movement, and Steph's comment on that post as well. For these women in Poland, feminism is most obviously a political movement. And, it has to be political for a significant portion of these women for the protests and strikes to have an effect. I think Steph was right to say that perceiving feminism as more of a personal than political movement could be celebrated because it means that we have no need for protests like these to retain our freedoms in America. But personally, I believe feminism is also believing in the equality of all women, and this goes beyond our borders. And when you look beyond those, you see the struggles of the women in Poland, trans women everywhere, and so many other areas where political activism is still needed for progress. So, perhaps we are not yet ready for feminism to be just personal. As Steph said, "this assumption would lead us to stop pushing change and may forever hold true feminist society at bay."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37745693

10 Amazing Women That You Won't Find in History Books

I came across a post on Facebook titled 10 Amazing Women That You Won't Find in History Books and I think this is worth taking a browse through. The only women I recognized was Ida Wells and I learned a lot of interesting facts about female activists, innovators, and scientists around the world. Just as we read about Rosa Parks in Freedom's Daughters, there was a civil rights activist a century earlier named Elizabeth Jennings who refused to give up her seat on a New York City streetcar in 1854! Jennings set an important precedent in challenging segregation and by 1860 most of the streetcar lines in New York City were integrated. If you'd like to read more about her (or others), Jennings is the second women highlighted in this article:

http://www.livescience.com/55485-amazing-women-history-forgot.html

Reaction to Melania Trump's Anderson Cooper Interview

http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/melania-trump-conspiracy-theorist

Melania Trump has been a figure of much discussion throughout this presidential campaign. She unflinchingly believes in her husband, but is also not allowed to speak for herself for much of the campaign. The few times in which she has spoken for herself, like her speech at the Republican convention, she has come off as oblivious, unintelligent, a fraud, and blindly obedient to her husband and his policies. During this interview with Anderson Cooper that happened last night, she labels all of the mainstream media that has reported on her husband's allegations of sexual assault as dishonest and that the media outlets are in a conspiracy with Hillary Clinton to make Trump look bad. Her inclination to disparage and criticize women in a similar way to how her husband does is confusing to consumers of modern media and also unlike other female political figures in the limelight. I watched this whole interview but I thought that this reaction to it was something worth reading. 

Michelle Obama's speech in New Hampshire

If you haven't seen this video of Michelle Obama, you need to. Once again, she delivers a powerful speech on behalf of women everywhere. I know there have been a lot of posts about her, but this speech will take your breath away.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/14/michelle-obama-speech-transcript-donald-trump

"Feminism is not a political movement."

I stumbled upon this article from almost a year ago and was really intrigued by this quote from the article and thought it'd be fun to share with you all. What do you think about the ideas that this quote proposes and what does it mean for the so called movement going on right now?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/feminism/betty-friedan-to-beyonce-todays-generation-embraces-feminism-on-its-own-terms/2016/01/27/ab480e74-8e19-11e5-ae1f-af46b7df8483_story.html

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, Founder of Computer Science

 

Although she was not directly involved in American Politics, I think Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper is an important figure that may have been disappeared from our historical memory like Jo Ann Robinson. Admiral Hopper is considered the founder of Computer Science and she was one of the many pioneers during the Age of Computing. If you're looking at the picture of her above, you can see that Admiral Hopper served in the US Naval Reserved during WW2. After the military and  during "her lifetime as a leader in the field of software development concepts, she contributed to the transition from primitive programming techniques to the use of sophisticated compilers" including the B-O compiler called FLOW-MATIC for Univac, the first commercial large-scale electronic computer. This English Language compiler is the first assembly language developed to use English words. Admiral Hopper was an inspiration to women and scientists and her work paved the way for modern data processing (and also what I'm learning in my CS class!). Below is a short biography and the second link is Admiral Hopper's The Education of a Computer (1988) that discusses the tools and techniques used to create Univac.

Shoutout to Professor Dodds from my CS 5 class for posting this for this weeks' reading response!

http://cs-www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/hopper-story.html

https://www.cs.hmc.edu/~cs5grad/cs5/educationOfAComputer.pdf

Thank You Notes to Michelle Obama

Hope everyone had a wonderful fall break! I just wanted to share an fascinating article from the NY times with 4 thank you letters to Michelle Obama. These reminded me in many ways, of the letters we read to Eleanor Roosevelt.

 From these brief letters, I could hear the immense admiration, respect and belief in Michelle Obama. One line that I loved in the article was how Michelle "sharpened her husband’s then-hazy form, made him solid, more than just a dream." This resonated with me because it reminded me of how Eleanor complemented FDR and helped both his and her dreams become a reality. 

Similarly, another line I loved about Michelle Obama is about her authenticity. One of the letters describes how when Michelle first entered the political arena with her husband, "Michelle seemed genuine. She was genuine. All over America, black women were still, their eyes watching a form of God, because she represented their image writ large in the world."

This is quite an enjoyable and relatively quick read that I hope you enjoy! 

Michelle Obama (photo from NY Times)

How young Republican women react to Trump

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-trump-women-comment-0f8ca588-9072-11e6-bc00-1a9756d4111b-20161012-story.html

I was really interested to find out how young women who support Trump reacted to his comments about sexual assault this past week. This article provides some candid responses that I did not expect, for example, "I think it's far worse for women to say these things about a woman than a man to say these things. As a woman, you know how important it is to be heard, and if something happens against you sexually, you would expect other women to speak up and protect you.".

If we repealed the 19th Amendment, we'd join a party of...One

This article gives a good commentary on the strange recent push to repeal the 19th Amendment. It's interesting to see how willing some people are to advocate for repealing an amendment when they are the same group the up holds the idea of the Constitution so tightly.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/stevens/ct-repeal-the-19th-amendment-balancing-1013-20161013-column.html

#Repealthe19th

I'm sure you guys have all seen this already—but I'm so curious to hear what everyone has to say about this considering the time we spent reading about the fight for women's suffrage.

So Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight Twitter has been posting some excellent maps and projections, especially after the most recent debates.

Here's the first map:

And here's the second:

So after Nate Silver posted these, this started trending on Facebook and Twitter: #Repealthe19th. Here's one hilarious tweet that particularly stood out to me...

But then, when I went on Twitter to look at more of these tweets just for kicks, I found way more tweets that were denouncing the use of #Repealthe19th. 

One tie-in to class (although I'm sure we can find many, many more!) is that we discussed the idea that women's suffrage seems so obvious for now and many people take it for granted, not understanding that it was uncertain in the decades before its passage, and required a difficult struggle. What other connections do you guys see?

Amazon Series - Good Girls Revolt

Hey all! I was just browsing for some fall break items to watch on Amazon, and I came upon this—a new series called "Good Girls Revolt."

Here's the description:
In 1969, while a cultural revolution swept through the free world, there was still one place that refused to change with the times: newsrooms. Good Girls Revolt follows a group of young female researchers at "News of the Week," who ask to be treated fairly. Their revolutionary request sparks convulsive changes and upends marriages, careers, sex lives, love lives, and friendships.

Although this is later than the materials we've looked at so far, the description reminded me of reading about Ida B. Wells and her revolutionary role as both an anti-lynching crusader (engaging in political activity) and a female journalist (engaging in this activity through an emerging medium in which women were underrepresented). This seems to also deal with demands for equality in the workplace, an issue that the Equal Rights Amendment also brings up. 

Let me know if anyone decides to watch the first episode! 

International Day of the Girl Child (Plus a bonus Michelle Obama film)

Today is the International Day of the Girl Child, a day declared by the United Nations to focus on girls' issues and bettering their lives. Appropriately, CNN has published an article listing the 5 toughest places to be a girl. It is important while looking at this to remember that it is easy to judge these countries from our point of view, but as a country we rank 28th for the best place to be a girl, and we can do much better than this, also.

Additionally, this article touches on Michelle Obama's activism surrounding her Let Girls Learn initiative. I think it's cool for us to read a little bit more about Michelle Obama's work as a first lady, as we were discussing in class yesterday that we don't know that much about her. A documentary about her travels learning about girls' education and other factors is also premiering today on CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/health/gender-inequality-worst-countries/

Letters from Eleanor Roosevelt

https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/10/11/eleanor-roosevelt-lorena-hickok-love-letters/

After discussing Eleanor Roosevelt in class today, I conducted some follow up research. Although the readings from class extensively examined Eleanor Roosevelt's political accomplishments, I was just as intrigued by her multi-faceted, fascinating and quite mysterious personal life. I found an interesting website that has a few excerpts from her letters with Lorena Hickok here.

These letters help provide a little more context into her relationship with Lorena Hickok. Although it will never be possible to fully understand Eleanor's relationship with Lorena, its important to recognize that the letters "offer a beautiful record of a tender, steadfast, deeply loving relationship between two women who meant the world to one another, even if the world never quite condoned or understood their profound connection". These letters are taken from a collection of 300 letters between Hickok and Roosevelt which are published in a book titled Empty Without You. 

Although a few of these letters suggest that Hickock and Roosevelt may have shared a relationship of "great romantic intensity", this subject has remained an issue "of lasting controversy" for many years. Nonetheless, I truly found these letters to show the personable/compassionate/romantic side of Eleanor Roosevelt that was touched upon briefly in class throughout our discussions. I hope these may be interesting to you all as well! 

Pew: In both parties, men and women differ over whether women still face obstacles to progress

 I came across this article during some thesis background work. It explains, as we might suspect, that Democratic women think that women still face particular obstacles in our society which make it harder to get ahead. Democratic men follow, then Republican women, and lastly Republican men. This is instructive from an electoral perspective-- which groups make up the support base of each major party determines the politics of their representatives. However, it also reveals that the perspective of key players can have serious consequences throughout our political system. If more liberal Republican men, who believe obstacles still inhibit women, start gaining elected office, we might expect a gradual change in the beliefs of all Republican men. The influence works both ways.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/16/in-both-parties-men-and-women-differ-over-whether-women-still-face-obstacles-to-progress/

Op-Ed: The right says Hillary Clinton is responsible for her husband. Why isn’t Melania Trump?

Here is a short op-ed from the Washington Post about the double standard that women, specifically Hillary Clinton, are held to in regards to responsibility over their husbands. As an op-ed, it is clearly very biased against Trump, but I think it makes some interesting points as to the different roles that women are expected to fulfill within politics, and how these expectations are often contradictory.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/10/07/the-right-says-hillary-clinton-is-responsible-for-her-husband-why-isnt-melania-trump/?utm_term=.edb017f6cb33

Jane Addams-Fun Facts

Jane Addams: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams_postcard.jpg

Dear History 175 friends,

Hope you all had a great weekend. I just found out this weekend that Jane Addams was the second women to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She was recognized with this tremendous honor for her work with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which she founded in 1919,  "to get the great powers to disarm and conclude peace agreements". 


She fearlessly defended international efforts for piece and fought against war, even if her ideas were considered by many to be unpopular. For example, during " World War I, she chaired a women's conference for peace held in the Hague in the Netherlands, and tried in vain to get President Woodrow Wilson of the USA to mediate peace between the warring countries". Even after she was "stamped a dangerous radical and a danger to US security," she refused to stop fighting for what she believed in. 


Jane Addams was truly an amazing activist, not only at the national level, but also at the international level. Its important that we never forget about her work in history. Please feel free to read more about her accomplishments here. 


Have a great weekend.

Best,

Michael 

Women's Spaces Article, Both On and Off of the Internet

Hey everyone! I found an applicable article to what we talked about today about how we all wanted to know about how Lois Capps experienced camaraderie between female representatives. This article comes from a little known feminist website but I thought it was cool because Hillary Clinton took the time to write it and compare how spaces need to be made for women on the internet as well.

Enjoy!