We Will Be Heard: Women's Struggles for Political Power in the United States

by Jo Freeman
Rowman & Littlefield
276 pages
Paper: ISBN 0-7425-5608-5
Cloth: ISBN 0-7425-5607-7


Table of Contents
Endorsements
Reviews


In We Will Be Heard noted political scientist Jo Freeman chronicles some of the struggles of women in the United States for political power. Most of their stories are little-known, but Freeman’s compelling portrait of women working for change reminds us that women have never been silent in the political affairs of the nation.

From J. Ellen Foster's address to the 1892 Republican Convention to Nancy Pelosi's 2007 election as the first female Speaker of the House, women have worked to influence politics at every level. Well before most could vote, women campaigned for candidates and lobbied to shape public policy. Men welcomed their work, but not their ideas. Even with equal suffrage women faced many barriers to full political participation.

The fifteen case studies of women’s struggles for political influence in this book provide the historical context for today’s political events. Starting with an overview of when and why political women have been studied, the three sections of the book look at different ways in which women have broken barriers, practiced politics, and promoted public policy. These engaging and accessible stories are even more important in today’s political climate, when a woman can finally be a front-runner in a presidential race.

Readers of all political stripes will enjoy the history behind modern politics in this story of women struggling to make their voices heard.

Table of Contents: Chapters 6 and 13 available for viewing

PROLOGUE:

1 - The Search for Political Woman

PART I - Practicing Politics

2 - The Iowa Origins of Organized Republican Women

3 - "One Man, One Vote, One Woman, One Throat": Women in New York City Politics, 1890-1910

4 - The Rise of Political Woman in the Election of 1912

5 - All the Way for the ERA: Winning and Losing in Virginia

PART II - Breaking Barriers

6 - The Women Who Ran for President

7 - Ruth Bryan Owen: Florida's First Congresswoman

8 - Marion Martin of Maine: A Mother of Republican Women

9 - Gender Gaps in Presidential Elections

10 -Feminism and Anti-Feminism in the Republican and Democratic Parties

11 - Gender Representation in the Democratic and Republican Parties

PART III - Promoting Policy

12 - "Equality" vs. "Protection": Setting the Agenda After Suffrage

13 - How "Sex" Got Into Title VII: Persistent Opportunism as a Maker of Public Policy

14 - Congressional Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

15 - Comparable Worth

EPILOGUE:

16 - The Long Road to Madame Speaker

ENDORSEMENTS

"What a windfall of history and wisdom from the doyenne of the study of women and politics! Freeman's essays offer new information and rich insights into more than a century of history of women in party and electoral politics, policy formation, and gendered voting patterns." — Susan M. Hartmann, The Ohio State University

"Jo Freeman is the best of all possible political scientists: one committed to activism and truth at the same time. Anyone who reads We Will Be Heard is likely to get hooked on the drama of the Equal Rights Amendment in Congress, or the mystery of the missing-from-history fifty women who ran for President -- and become as fascinated with politics as a true democracy requires."— Gloria Steinem

A compelling and authoritative analysis of women in the past century of American politics. This classic study is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of how women shaped American politics and how American politics shaped women's public activism from the 1890s to the present. — Kathryn Kish Sklar, SUNY Binghamton

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