Overview

"American women attain more professional success than most of their counterparts around the world, but - Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin not withstanding - they lag surprisingly far behind in the national political arena. Women held only 15 per cent of U.S. congressional seats in 2006, a proportion that ranks America behind eighty-two other countries in terms of females elected to legislative office. A compelling exploration of this deficiency, ""The Motherless State"" reveals why the United States differs from comparable democracies that routinely elect far more women to their national governing bodies and chief executive positions. Explaining that equal rights alone do not ensure equal access to political office, Eileen McDonagh shows that electoral gender parity also requires public policies that represent maternal traits. Most other democracies, she demonstrates, view women as more suited to govern because their governments have taken on maternal roles through social welfare provisions, gender quotas, or the continuance of symbolic hereditary monarchies. The United States has not adopted such policies, and until it does, McDonagh insightfully warns, American women run for office with a troubling disadvantage."

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9780226514543

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Reviews

"""The lack of female leadership in the United States is a serious puzzle. To solve it, this subtle and sophisticated book examines the very idea of the state and how the policies it enacts shape public attitudes that lead to the exclusion of women from national political office. The Motherless State fills a major gap in the literature on women and political leadership in the United States."" - Ruth O'Brien, Graduate Center of the City University of New York"""

The lack of female leadership in the United States is a serious puzzle. To solve it, this subtle and sophisticated book examines the very idea of the state and how the policies it enacts shape public attitudes that lead to the exclusion of women from national political office. The Motherless State fills a major gap in the literature on women and political leadership in the United States. - Ruth O'Brien, Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Author Information

Eileen McDonagh is professor of political science at Northeastern University and visiting scholar at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University.

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