Transcripts For CSPAN2 BOOK TV 20160307 : vimarsana.com

Week. Look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv. This weekend where in anaheim, california, with the help of our local cable partner time warner. Next, lori cox han discusses the history of women in politics and the barriers she sees facing women seeking higher offices. The history of women in politics in the United States goes back a lot farther than i think a lot of people realize. Particularly when youre talking about women running for president. We thought women would run in the 19 such. Victory would all things do so before women got the right to vote. There is a long history if you look at all of the different ways of the womens Rights Movement, of women not only fighting for suffrage but for political and legal equality. If you look at the different wave of womens right movement and feminism, there is at a time period women are not politically active. In a contemporary sense one of the biggest events for women going into Political Office came in 1992 what we refer to as the year of the woman. It was because there were so many women running for office and so many women who got elected. That was a big significant increase in numbers of women in congress at the state level. That marked a very important turning point. For a few decades weve seen a lot of attention focused on wednesday elected to higher positions. Right now we are at about 20 in terms of women serving in congress. One of the areas in terms of executive position weve not seen as dramatic an increase is women as governors. Weve only had 35, 36 women serve as governors in the nations history. It is the disparity in terms of women getting into executive position. When we talk about electing the first woman president or Vice President thats significant. Theres the debate over whether or not its called, socalled the class ceiling. That seems to be that last hurdle that women in politics need to achieve in order to be able to say that there are no barriers in the political system anymore for women at the interesting thing about the fact weve not seen more women governors is that if you look at the largest states, california and new york, florida, illinois, pennsylvania, texas. Texas is the only state that elected and women a woman governor. Its especially surprising given that california, new york, blue states, more progressive and yet we have not yet elected a woman governor. Weve had women run in california and not women on both sides. Its so unique statebystate in terms of what is contributing to fewer women seeking these officers across the board with women in politics, theres a lot of research right now that supports this, that one of the biggest issues that few women are choosing to run for Public Office right now and younger women especially dont seem as if its about getting involved in politics right now. That means you fewer women in the political pipeline. When you look at what we called the on deck circle for potential president ial candidates, you tend to look at governors, particularly governors of big states, you look at prominent senators within congress. You look at a current or former Vice President and there just are not many women of there. In congress the only woman who was held a leadership position to the states nancy pelosi. Thats my privilege to present the gavel to the first woman speaker in our history, the gentlelady from california, nancy pelosi. [cheers and applause] she was speaker of the house and she still minority leader. There just are not enough women in the pipeline right now to be automatically considered to run for president. Dishy we did see history being made with a woman running for president both on the republican and the democratic side. That had never happened before. Its a matter of getting more women into the pipeline and having them be seen as viable candidates. I think we are moving forward on the issue particularly from this years campaign. One of the legacies i think will come from Hillary Clintons campaign in 2008 and again in 2016 is the fact its not that surprising anymore to see a woman running for president. Or Carly Fiorinas campaign this year as well, that we start to get used to sing it with one woman on the debate stage during the primaries. I think that will be important moving forward to make sure that progress continues even more women running that on on the democratic side by the republican side as well. Im not sure which is worse in terms of the democrats or the republicans, the fact the democrats have nominated as a running mate since 1984 or it took the republicans into 2008. Neither party has a good record because over that time period there have been so many women on both sides that wouldve been terrific running mates for any number of the candidates. I think both parties need to do a better job of that. Both parties are concerned but hitting the womens vote. The gender gap favors democrats but when you look closer in the numbers, in 2012, for example, that romney won among white women and among married women. Those groups have a higher turnout than women of color or women single women or working moms, single moms. Its not that the democrats have a lock on the womens vote. And so having a woman as a running mate, for example, might be a good outreach to women voters. But again the assumption that women would fall in line and vote for Hillary Clinton has not proven to you because she has already struggled with not only polling but in early states of having an overwhelming number of women support her because not only are the women supporting republican candidates which we tend to forget sometimes that there are plenty of women and young women supporting bernie sanders. Its just not automatic. Younger women particularly Millennial Women view feminism the womens Rights Movement differently and previous generations. They feel that attitude is from my students a lot that students a lot that they feel like they can do anything they want. There are no barriers in the workforce. They have access to any opportunities. Younger women while they are very interested in what happened in those previous generations among iconic feminist like a gloria steinem, they can have much more diverse view of how they do things. They have grown up in such a different culture than the women who are fighting for all of these things back in the 60s and 70s. I think that generational difference is challenged by the womens Rights Movement continues to ongoing discussion about what is feminism and how do we define it. The are all talk of assumptions in what i call the conventional wisdom of how we used to look at what will it take to elect a woman president , our why do we have more women in politics. A lot of those are actually myths. Theres no empirical evidence to support it. When you look at what challenges you are for a woman to get elected president you have to look at a entire context of its just as challenging for me to get elected president. This idea that its so much harder for a woman, its really hard for anyone to get elected president when you think about the long slog that is the campaign in the prenomination socalled invisible primary thats not so invisible anymore and then throughout the nomination period ending getting your partys nomination and then the general election. I mean, at various points gender really does not matter. If you look at Hillary Clinton in 2008, and ive heard people say she lost because shes a woman. Theres no evidence of that. Shes very good at fundraising. Shes proven that throughout her career. There were problems in her 2008 campaign, and maybe its not so much that she lost but barack obama won the nomination. Had obama not been in the race she might have gotten the nomination, probably would have and maybe we would be in the last year of a Hillary Clinton presidency. I think the traditional argument about why its important for women to be elected into higher Public Office is a that it is a very symbolic and very important way to show that women do have equal standing. We are considered equal in the eyes of the law but also politically as well. It would certainly change that but if we had a woman president , how we view the commanderinchief, for example. That the presidency is very maledominated office, very macho in terms of many of the aspects, and i think while, like i said the constitution doesnt change if we collect a woman, but the symbolic nature of the presidency i think would certainly change. And for a lot of people they see that as proof that in politics women really good are equal. But again it might be generational because im not sure millennials see it the same as generation x. Are baby boomers. They can take a different interpretation from some of these things. A lot of my students will say okay, we need to elect the first woman president but when will we have the first latino president . Will ever have an lgbtq president . They are interested in broader issues other than that. I think that might help as we move forward to see more diversity in politics because we are not locked into just one particular view of what the president on what a politician is supposed to look like. For more information on booktvs recent visit to anaheim and the many other destinations on our cities to her, go to cspan. Org cities to her. Spent you are watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers