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This book examines the emergence of gender consciousness among women as a significant force in American politics. The author bases her argument on an in-depth empirical analysis of data derived from the U.S. biennial National Election studies of 1974 to 1984, the year of the emergence of the so-called gender gap. The author discusses the fact that while feminism is central to womens' political orientation, the simple awareness of gender differences and group consciousness is a powerful force of change.
In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. The result is a superbly crafted book that provides the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought.
With dramatic suddenness, the feminist movement emerged on the social scene in the late 1960s, and by 1980 it was a political force to be reckoned with. This ground-breaking study combs a wealth of public opinion surveys and census data to discover why women have become politically active and what it means to public policy. The book focuses on two compelling questions: What are the common concerns that mobilize women, and how do these concerns shape political activism? Ethel Klein finds that a trend toward redefining women's lives has been present since the turn of the century. She examines the erosion of traditional patterns in women's roles brought about by rising divorce rates, fuller participation in the workforce, and longer lives. Klein argues that the elements required for revolutionary change--such as grievances, leaders, organization, and resources--were evident long before the 1960s. What was missing was a constituency to support feminist demands. She explores in detail how the public approval of women's rights finally caught up with the need for reform. As group consciousness grew, so did public support. The two factors coalesced in the rise of activism and a full-blown women's movement. Klein tests her hypotheses on the elections of 1972, 1976, and 1980, with surprising results. She finds from election polls that men are no less feminist than women, but that women's support comes from group consciousness while men's comes from a liberal ideology. At the individual level she reveals how support of feminism affects people's political decisions--their approval of protest, their preference for collective forms of activism, and, when real alternatives are present, thevotes they cast for President.
Since 1980, most elections in the United States have been marked by a “gender gap” in which women are more supportive of Democratic candidates than men by nearly ten percentage points. Women at the Polls finds that this gender gap is quite extensive as it exists in almost all demographic groups and as it is based on similar differences in the political attitudes of women and men over a wide array of issues. This suggests that women are becoming an important constituency in U.S. politics.
Uncovering the psychological and sociological reasons for the gender gap in American politics, this fascinating volume explores how such factors influence women and lead to their political beliefs and behaviors. Based on original research with women voters of varying ages around the United States from 2008 to the present, the book delves into differences between voting women and men-and indeed among women themselves. The gender gap, the author argues, exists because women's social identity is tied to their group memberships and gender-role beliefs. Thus, rather than grouping all women into one voting bloc, the book examines how gender identity influences various sub-groups of women. It begins with a discussion of the gender gap in voting preferences throughout history, then goes on to explore the roles of feminism and women's connectedness to their gender group as a primary cause of the gender gap in voting. The remaining chapters discuss how these factors influence women's political engagement, policy positions, and candidate preferences.
Abstract: For the past twenty years, gender differences in politics have been well documented, but much of the literature that deals with women and politics treats women as a monolithic group. The idea that differences among women, and not just differences between men and women, are politically important is just beginning to get the attention it deserves. In this study I examine the effects of an interaction between two well-documented political characteristics-- political sophistication and gender consciousness. What I test in this research is whether political sophistication and gender consciousness, although politically significant separately, interact to produce a dynamic that is manifested in political gender differences. These factors may be triggers of some of the aggregate gender differences that we see; as suggested in some of the gender gap literature, it is likely that a group of women who share these characteristics are substantially different from both other women and men. These women should take their status as women into consideration when constructing political opinions, but also be able to understand where those interests lie when making political decisions such as voting. Political sophistication can be understood as having the political information and expertise to understand both politics and how one's own political interest fits into the political environment. Gender consciousness imbues an individual with the sense that her gender is a factor in many aspects of life. It is likely, then, that someone with high degrees of political sophistication and gender consciousness will combine these positions into several different views. First, they will see their gender as being politically relevant, and they will also have the understanding of where, particularly, their gender affects their political life. They are also likely to feel that their gender is disadvantaged, but this will be coupled with the political sophistication to understand how that disadvantage can be remedied. In short, individuals possessing both gender consciousness and political sophistication will be adept at determining which policies are in women's interests. I find mixed results, the strongest of which indicate that there is a very strong relationship between gender consciousness and sophistication. The effects of this relationship on public opinion are less clear, but results show that there is an effect on a subset of issues of particular relevance. Moreover, women who are both gender conscious and politically sophisticated have distinct voting behavior from other women and from men.
Arguing that the field of women and politics has "come of age" and edited by best-selling author Karen O'Connor, this reader includes both classic and contemporary readings on women and politics and provides students with an understanding of current research in the area, a sense the evolution of the field of women and politics over time, and ideas of where the research is likely to go in the future.
Drawing on original research, Kristin A. Goss examines how women's civic place has changed over the span of more than 120 years, how public policy has driven these changes, and why these changes matter for women and American democracy. Suffrage, which granted women the right to vote and invited their democratic participation, provided a dual platform for the expansion of women's policy agendas. As measured by women's groups' appearances before the U.S. Congress, women's collective political engagement continued to grow between 1920 and 1960—when many conventional accounts claim it declined—and declined after 1980, when it might have been expected to grow. This waxing and waning was accompanied by major shifts in issue agendas, from broad public interests to narrow feminist interests. Goss suggests that ascriptive differences are not necessarily barriers to disadvantaged groups' capacity to be heard; that enhanced political inclusion does not necessarily lead to greater collective engagement; and that rights movements do not necessarily constitute the best way to understand the political participation of marginalized groups. She asks what women have gained — and perhaps lost — through expanded incorporation as well as whether single-sex organizations continue to matter in 21st-century America.
The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Women's Social Movement Activism provides a comprehensive examination of scholarly research and knowledge on a variety of aspects of women's collective activism in the United States, tracing both continuities and critical changes over time.