| Women and Politics: Bringing Them Together in a Humphrey School Reading Group
By Jamie Proulx at UMNnews
Published on August 20, 2004
In 1922, Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia was appointed to the
United States Senate. She served for one day. Merely filling a short-term
vacancy, Felton still became the first woman to serve in the senate.
It took her 133 years to get there. Thirty-three women have since
served, with 14 women currently in the club.
Women in politics are, to this day, considered especially ambitious
and courageous. The current 108th congress boasts the largest number
of women in history, and yet the female-to-male ratio is far from
equal. Increasingly, more women such as Madeleine Albright and Condeleeza
Rice are given the chance to lead in high profile government positions.
Yet, there has yet to be a female president of the United States
and a woman's commitments as a mother still play a larger role in
the public's eye than a man's role as a father.
Tackling the issue of women in politics is Humphrey School
professor Sally Kenney, director of the Center on Women and Public
Policy. In 2003, she, along with Mary Rosenthal of the DFL Education
Foundation, founded the Women and Politics Reading Group in an effort
to bring the wider community into the discussion. The reading group
meets every six weeks or so to discuss books on women and politics
that are aimed at a general audience. The group is free and open
to anyone.
A lively conversation at a Humphrey School lecture about Fire
in My Soul, a biographical look at Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes
Norton's journey to Capitol Hill, led Kenney to believe there was
an unmet need for a book club on popular political literature.
"Without some added incentive to read them, it's hard for
me to find time for books that aren't really academic but are more
directed towards a popular audience," Kenney says. "The
other piece of [starting this club] is that I feel it serves the
Humphrey's mission well of bridging the academic and community divide.
People are not necessarily going to read tomes of political science,
but this is a good activity geared toward a community-based audience."
The club's past selections have included Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton's book Living History and former Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright's book Madam Secretary. Both offer a very
personal look at how difficult it can be for a woman to enter politics.
"A number of us have genuine ambivalence to the compromises
women have to make. What are fair expectations? What expectations
are too high?" Kenney says. "The biographies also reveal
one of women's chief worries about politics. How will I balance
work and family? What kind of a life will I have? These women all
write about their painful personal lives-their divorces and their
bumps along the way. It's inspiring to read about how they coped."
Is having the conversation about the challenges women face in
the political arena important? Kenney says yes, and sees it as a
way not only to involve the community but to also engage women.
"Progress [toward more women in politics] has been incremental,
and we want to accelerate the pace of change," Kenney says.
"And unfortunately we are sometimes our own worst critics.
With someone like [former vice-presidential candidate] Geraldine
Ferraro, women felt a real identification and connection. With other
women of today that identification varies and unfortunately some
women are lukewarm towards supporting women in political roles."
Kenney welcomes all those interested to join their reading group.
Meetings take place on Wednesdays at 5:00 p.m. in room 205 of the
Humphrey School (Freeman Commons) on the Twin Cities campus.
Upcoming meetings include: Wednesday, September 1 with Cokie Robert's
book Founding Mothers; Wednesday, October 20 with Donna Brazile's
Cooking With Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics;
and Wednesday, December 1 with Eleanor Clift's Founding Sisters.
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