A helpful resource about Hillary Rodham Clinton

See the New York Times interactive feature here, with links to video clips about different stages of her life.

A new academic article on our seminar topic!

I saw this posted on ssrn.com. The article is by Quinetta Roberson and Gregory Scott Parks. Here's the abstract:

Scholars, and even the presidential candidates, have described the 2008 election as an extended interview process for a high-ranking job. Following that characterization of the Presidential race, questions about sexism and gender bias along the campaign trail implicate the law. Title VII protects individuals from sex bias in the workplace. And while modern conceptions of how such bias actually operates, largely drawn from social and cognitive psychology, aids legal decision-makers in determining whether such bias indeed took place in any particular case, greater insight into the intersection of psychology and the law is needed. Here, we explore the role of sexism and implicit (subconscious) gender bias in the Presidential race through the lens of Title VII. Further, we buttresses the proposition put forth by a growing body of legal scholars that the role of implicit attitudes in decision-making has significant implications for Title VII jurisprudence.

The full article is not posted for downloading, but I see on their author page that Roberson and Parks have also written about Michelle Obama.

Carefully Constructed: Michelle Obama as the Next Jacqueline Kennedy?

There's a piece in the Style Section of the New York Times today about Michelle Obama's wardrobe, entitled U.S. Fashion’s One-Woman Bailout?

The article quotes Hamish Bowles, Vogue Editor and Curator of Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years, an art exhibition of Jackie's clothing. 

In 2002, I was an intern at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. During my internship, the blockbuster Jacqueline Kennedy exhibition was on display at the museum. Because my office was located on the first floor, at the rear of the building, I walked through the exhibition several times a day for several months. I probably saw the beloved inaugural gala dress 250 times.

Jacqueline Kennedy's clothing was extraordinary--one of a kind pieces created by some of the greatest designers in history, including Oleg Cassini, Gabrielle Chanel, and Christian Dior. Jackie's 1962 Christmas dress, a deep pink silk radzimir piece by Hubert de Givenchy, had such sophisticated twists in the back it required a lady's maid to tie Jackie into it. Many of her dresses had skillfully accomplished, hand sewn bead work or embroidery.

While I certainly admire Michelle Obama's style, I am not entirely convinced that Obama is the new Jacqueline Kennedy. Sure, I can agree that Michelle Obama exudes some of the same sophistication as Jackie, but somehow I don't see Obama's off-the-rack J. Crew sweater sets making it into a museum of fine art.  

Some year-end rumination about gender and the election

I just saw these over at blogher.com.

One post is titled "Feminism and Gender in 2008: The Good, the Bad and the Election" and is by Suzanne Reisman.

The other is under the headline "Politics: We Always End up Talking about Hillary, Don't We?"

They both provide some food for thought.

Parallels between Caroline Kennedy and Sarah Palin?

One thing that has stuck in my head from Caroline Kennedy's early statements about her informal candidacy for the soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat for NY regards her credentials to hold that post. Kennedy gave this response a couple of weeks ago regarding her qualifications:

“I’ve written books on the Constitution and the importance of individual participation. And I’ve raised my family. I think I really could help bring change to Washington.”

Read the full story here.

One reason this comment has lingered for me is that it is so similar -- the parenting/mothering part, anyway -- to Sarah Palin's presentation of her credentials to become U.S. Vice President. While stumping on the campaign trail, she frequently played up her experiences raising five children. Here's the video of her self-identification as a hockey mom at the Republican National Convention. While Republicans tended to valorize Palin's motherhood, Democrats tended to downplay its relevance, if not outright scoff at it. (Of course, Palin's critics also had some things to say about the quality of her parenting).

In sorting through my own thoughts about the relevance of motherhood to the role of politician (or, for that matter, any work outside the home) I recalled this op-ed piece in the New York Times on Mother's Day, 2005 (memorable for me as my first Mother's Day as a mother). Katherine Ellison's piece was titled "This is Your Brain on Motherhood," and it asserted that having children can improve your intelligence. She explained how the human brain creates cells on an ongoing basis and that the cells that get used are more likely to survive. Because parenting often provides emotional, challenging, and novel experiences, those neurons get exercised. Ellison writes:

Children constantly drag their parents into challenging, novel situations, be it talking a 4-year-old out of a backseat meltdown on the Interstate or figuring out a third-grade homework assignment to make a model of a black hole in space.

* * *

[Children] fail to thrive unless we anticipate their needs, work our empathy muscles, adjust our schedules and endure their relentless testing. In the process, if we're lucky, we may realize that just this kind of grueling work - with our children, or even with others who could simply use some help - is precisely what makes us grow, acquire wisdom and become more fully human.

So, Ellison argues, we should see a mother's brain (and presumably a father's, too, if he's engaged with the full range of parenting tasks and experiences) as an asset rather than a handicap.

Does Ellison help convince you that raising children is relevant experience for one seeking public office? As a related matter, it is surely also worth considering how we view people who have never married or never had children. (Read Gail Collins recent column, "One Singular Sensation," here). Don't we sometimes see the absence of a spouse and children as a negative factor? Are women and men equally damned if they do, damned if they don't when it comes to being married? to having children?

Whatever relevance you assign to it, mothering roles are not the only experience shared by Palin and Kennedy. Another similarity is now being revealed, and it is the subject of an AP story by Jennifer Peltz today. Here's the lede:

If Caroline Kennedy had, you know, only known. Tracking the would-be New York senator's verbal tics has become a political parlor game in the days since she gave her first round of in-depth interviews, even spawning a hip-hop-style mash-up online blending her "you knows" with President-elect Barack Obama's "uhs."

Peltz goes on to report that one video on YouTube counts 30 "you knows" in 147 seconds of Kennedy excerpts. The other YouTube video referred to is here.

Remember how Palin was roundly and soundly criticized for her accent and use of language. Among those who got in on the act were Judith Warner, Roger Cohen, Maureen Dowd, and many others.

I have queried elsewhere whether all of this criticism of how Palin communicates is sexist. After all, various Presidents have spoken using colloquialisms (a wonderful example is here), and some have had (oh no!) Southern accents. Now I'm rethinking whether the criticism of Palin was more about gender or more about class. After all, no one doubts Kennedy's elite pedigree and education (Harvard and Columbia), yet she makes some of the same verbal blunders that Palin did--and she's being criticized for it.

The election is over, but talk of sexism persists in relation to the open U.S. Senate seat for NY

Caroline Kennedy formally requested this week that NY Governor David Paterson consider her for the U.S. Senate seat for that state, the seat that will open when Hillary Rodham Clinton resigns to become Secretary of State. (Photo Jean-Pierre Muller/Getty Images).

Here is the NYT story. Kennedy had only just put herself forward for consideration when commentators started throwing around words like "sexism" and "nepotism." Here's what Nicholas Kristof had to say yesterday in his blog:

Caroline Kennedy strikes me as a very impressive woman with all the right priorities, such as education. But I also find it unseemly and undemocratic that she seems to have vaulted to the top of the Senate list by virtue of who her dad was. * * * Isn’t that sexist?

I'm not sure how it is sexist . . . unless he is drawing some analogy to McCain's selection of Palin --which many argued was just because Palin was female. Also, there is the argument that since Hillary Rodham Clinton has held the seat, it has become a "woman's seat" and should be filled by another woman.

Kristof continues in a way that implicitly acknowledges the latter argument by saying that choosing Kennedy would be "disrespectful" of other female NY politicians with more experience and public service. He then again asserts sexism:

Isn’t it sexist to rush to support a woman because of her father, while ignoring other women who have earned their own substantial credentials in their own careers in Congress?

I appreciate his acknowledging the fine work of congresswomen and other female politicians from NY, but I don't know that it's sexist to support a woman with a famous father when, as Kristof himself acknowledges, various political dynasties in our nation's history have anointed sons. The Bushes are a fine example.

Don't miss readers comments on Kristof's post. More than one notes that if an "ism" is at play, it's nepotism, not sexism.

In her column today, Gail Collins also takes up the "fairness question." She begins by observing that New York is taking Caroline seriously and suggests it is with good reason. Collins notes Kennedy's extraordinary success as a fundraiser, while also distinguishing between the good causes for which Kennedy has raised money in the past and the distinct challenge of political fundraising. She also views Kennedy as having other important political skills, saying, "it's easy to imagine Kennedy doing a Hillary-like 'listening tour,' having round-table discussions about the dairy compact or broadband access."

Collins acknowledges that picking Kennedy may not be "fair," but then life rarely is. Collins seems a bit more positive than Kristof about the prospect and potential of Caroline Kennedy as U.S. Senator. And, hmmm, Collins doesn't mention sexism, perhaps because she does not see it as a force or issue in Paterson's decision.

An academic study of "Gender's Role in the 2008 Presidential Campaign"

Here is the abstract, which I just saw on ssrn.com:

Scholars, and even the presidential candidates, have described the 2008 election as an extended interview process for a high-ranking job. Following that characterization of the Presidential race, questions about sexism and gender bias along the campaign trail implicate the law. Title VII protects individuals from sex bias in the workplace. And while modern conceptions of how such bias actually operates, largely drawn from social and cognitive psychology, aids legal decision-makers in determining whether such bias indeed took place in any particular case, greater insight into the intersection of psychology and the law is needed. Here, we explore the role of sexism and implicit (subconscious) gender bias in the Presidential race through the lens of Title VII. Further, we buttresses the proposition put forth by a growing body of legal scholars that the role of implicit attitudes in decision-making has significant implications for Title VII jurisprudence.

Download the full paper by Quinetta Robertson and Gregory Scott Parks here.