March 19, 2019
NEWS & NOTES
From the nation's leading source on all things women and politics.
Ready to Run® Rundown 
Last Friday and Saturday, CAWP's annual campaign training program for women took place in New Brunswick, NJ. Ready to Run® 2019 pre-conference activities started off with a Diversity Initiative keynote by new Jersey Lieutenant Governor, and Ready to Run® alum, Sheila Oliver, before attendees broke off into panel discussions with our Diversity Initiative programs, Run Sister Run, Rising Stars, and Elecci ón Latina. Once the conference was fully joined, participants took part in plenary sessions focused on branding and messaging, polling data for women candidates, media training, and fundraising. Our two-track system of conference events had Track 1 attendees focused on launching a campaign and navigating New Jersey's political parties, while Track 2 attendees learned about the mechanisms of New Jersey politics and engaging with them and how to effectively advocate for and influence legislation. On our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages, you can get a small taste of the workshops, training sessions, and networking events that make up Ready to Run®, and see what's inspiring women to get more engaged and prepared to forge their own political path.
2019 Lipman Chair Event: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics 
For the first time in its nearly two-decade history, the Senator Wynona Lipman Chair in Women's Political Leadership will be shared by four co-chairs, the authors of the recent book For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics, Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah Daughtry, and Minyon Moore, four of the most prominent African American women political analysts and operatives in the country. The Lipman Chair was created to honor the legacy of the late State Senator Wynona Lipman, the first African American woman in the New Jersey State Senate, and was created with support from, and continues to be supported by, the New Jersey Legislature. This year, our four co-chairs will come together for a conversation on Monday, April 29th at 7pm in New Brunswick, NJ. Find details on the event and registration information on our website, as well as biographies of the 2019 Lipman Co-Chairs and Senator Wynona Lipman.


The Myth of the Seven Asks 

On CAWP's new Medium account, Kelly Dittmar and Debbie Walsh examined a prevailing myth in the women and politics space: that it takes an average of seven "asks" before a woman will run for office. They assert "there is no research that supports this idea that asking a woman to run a certain number of times will alter her candidacy calculus, nor could there be." After Dittmar and Walsh break apart this myth they pivot into a discussion of what it really means to encourage women to run for office in terms of institutional and financial support, and the most effective manifestations of that encouragement. "Women state legislators tell us that the most important reason they ran was a concern about a public policy issue...perhaps our time would be better spent showing women how and where their voices will matter in government than repeatedly asking them to take the plunge." Read the full piece here.
DON'T MAKE US ASK YOU SEVEN TIMES

Please consider a donation to support our mission of education, research, and political empowerment
  
CAWP is Hiring!
There's so much data right now about women's political participation that we're hiring a Research Project Coordinator to join our team. We're looking for someone with a strong background in data collection, organization, and analysis who has content expertise in gender and politics. Does this sound like you? Apply now!


New Leadership TM , New You
CAWP's political education program for college-aged women, NEW Leadership TM, is accepting applications for its 2019 flagship conference in New Jersey. The six-day residential program, held in June in New Brunswick, is open to rising juniors of New Jersey four-year colleges and universities, as well as students in two-year institutions. Participants deepen their political knowledge and engagement through hands-on workshops and opportunities to meet and learn from successful women leaders. Does this sound like a program for you? Apply Now! Do you know any New Jersey students with leadership potential? Encourage them to apply!

"Wait. No fair," you say, "I don't live or go to school in New Jersey. Sad!" GOOD NEWS! The NEW Leadership TM National Network of participating educational institutions hosts conferences modeled on CAWP's original program in states across the country. Find a program near you today.




 
Presidential Watch

As more and more candidates jump into the Democratic presidential primaries, debate viewers are going to see a stage as crowded as a Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance. Last week, Beto O'Rourke entered the race, and The Atlantic published an article about some of the double standards that his candidacy may reveal in terms of the gendered and racially coded ways we view ineffable qualities like "charisma." Relatedly, The Boston Globe asked whether 2020 is "the right time for a white guy" as the Democratic nominee for president. In contrast, ThinkProgress interviewed Kelly Dittmar for a video piece about how sexism might persist in coverage of women candidates in the 2020 campaign.

Speaking of the men of the 2020 campaign, The New York Times took a look at the candidates, including Beto and Cory Booker, who are intimating that they would, if nominated, choose a women as a running mate, in an acknowledgement of the energy behind women candidates in 2018 and heading into 2020. Also in the Times, Richard Dorment writes about the historic diversity of the male 2020 candidates, in terms of ethnicity, sexual orientation, background, and approach. It's 2019 and apparently there's more than one way to run for office as a man.
 
Back in January, we hosted Brittney Cooper and Rebecca Traister for a conversation about their work and now in the past week both of them have published fantastic profiles of Stacey Abrams that get into her gubernatorial run and what might be in store for her next, Cooper in Marie Claire and Traister in New York.

In other 2020 race news, HuffPost has an article out about child care in the United States and what women politicians are doing to solve an increasingly fraught problem, including Elizabeth Warren's policy proposal and the central role it plays in her presidential campaign. "Democratic presidential hopefuls who ignore the power of the votes of women of color do so at their own peril," Debbie Walsh said in an interview with USA Today about Black women exercising their political influence. In Vox, Li Zhou takes a look at the six women in the campaign so far and how the presence of multiple women in the race is normalizing the idea of women presidential candidates altogether. Susan Chira writes in The New York Times about the decline in the number of women who are entering politics from what had been a common path: via familial connection to a male politician. She sees Hillary Clinton as a transitional figure to a new era, one in which none of the six women running for president come from powerful political families.


Party Down

It's been a minute since we've reported on women in the Republican Party, but the last couple of weeks saw a new batch of interesting stories on how women are faring in the GOP. Politico published new polling data that showed stark divides in how Democratic and Republican women view issues around gender equality. Yahoo News interviewed Debbie Walsh for a video piece about the struggles faced by women in the GOP that's pegged to a survey showing that Democratic women are more likely to have positive views of women in power than their Republican counterparts. Kelly Dittmar, meanwhile, participated in a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations about women's political participation in which she pointed out that 2018, while a good year for women overall, was actually a dismal one for Republican women. Finally, The Deseret News profiled Utah power broker Gayle Ruzicka in relation to an evolving Republican Party, interviewing Jean Sinzdak for context about how the relationship between the GOP and its women voters, activists, and candidates has changed over the decades.


CAWP Round-up

Debbie Walsh was interviewed for an article in USA Today about women in office bringing their own experiences of sexual assault and domestic violence into the halls of power and relying on these experiences to drive public policy discussions. Walsh was also interviewed on Marketplace for a story about how family leave legislation might appeal to women voters. Susan Carroll appeared on WRVO to discuss the 2018 midterms and whether we've entered a new normal for American politics. Lastly, MSNBC interviewed Kelly Dittmar about the ways the 2018 results are already inspiring more women to get involved and run for office.
CAWP Calendar

Center for American Women and Politics
Eagleton Institute of Politics
Rutgers University | New Brunswick
191 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8557
(848) 932-9384 - Fax: (732) 932-6778