Essay about Political Science

Submitted By Breezy1991
Words: 837
Pages: 4

Briana
February 16, 2012
Chapter 2- pg.94 & Gendering American Politics pg. 33-41 The Second chapter of Women, Politics, and American Society started out with a quote from Hilary Clinton saying this, “My mother was born before women could vote. But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for president.” She was recognizing the fact that women worked hard for what they believed, and it paid off. The chapter went on to speak about the 19th amendment and how lack of women’s interest hindered the progression of women’s rights. This issue has luckily improved quite a bit over time, but it was a major hindrance in the early 1900’s. Also later in the chapter the author states that in 1949 half of the voters polled said they would not vote for a woman to be president even if they were in the same political party. Improvements in public support for women started improving by the late 1960’s, and by the late 90’s through the early 2000’s women and men claimed they would vote for a women president as long as their party nominated her. The book stated that girls tend to feel self-conscious and are often not put in to leadership positions and because of this they tend to shy away from politics. A national study showed that most girls from 8 years old to 17 said they would like to be a leader but do not feel qualified. The end of the chapter was about how the amount of women in Congress who were state legislators was minuscule but had gradually increased over time. There was an article that spoke about a woman named Mary Sue Terry who was elected as the youngest female attorney in Virginia, and had the highest statewide office a woman has held in the state. She encouraged other women to run for office as well, and started a “farm team.” This Farm team trained women in politics to pursue their political goals. In the article Why We Lost the ERA by Jane J. Mansbridge, she wrote the whole text of the equal rights amendment, and stated that it passed the Senate of the United States. Then ten years later when the amendment was due to be ratified only 35 of the 38 states need voted in favor of the ERA. Jane went on to explain that there were many reasons that the ERA did not pass. She said that public support did not increase in the ten year struggle, people were worried that it would have an immediate effect on the gap in men’s and women’s wages, and she went on to say that the defeat of the ERA was a major setback for the equality of men and women. She suggested that the ERA proponents delivered radical results, which made voters uncomfortable. Jane claimed that the volunteers would have rather fought and lost than fight and win something they did not fully agree with. She concluded by saying that the ERA was viewed as an issue that pitted women against women, and ultimately became a partisan issue which ruined the chance of gaining the supermajority and resulted in its demise. In the essay Toward Feminist Jurisprudence by Catharine A. MacKinnon, Catherine starts by explaining what jurisprudence is.