Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

Creating a Positive View

By Ellen D.B. Riggle, PhD

As an academic researcher, I have typically taught and written  about things that would depress and scare ordinary people (actually, these things depress and scare me too):  depression and anxiety, psychological abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, violent attacks, discrimination and everyday prejudice.  I discuss these topics in the context of the stresses that people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) face and have to cope with.  It seems that in my academic training, I was taught to focus on negative issues.  Implicitly I was taught that if nothing is “wrong” then everything must be okay, and we don’t need to talk about that.

Focusing on “what’s wrong” is important.  For example, the current focus on the violence and psychological abuse associated with bullying is essential to providing all children and adults with a safe environment for living their lives.  We are all responsible for solving this problem so we all need to be talking about it.  But in focusing on what’s wrong, sometimes we forget to also focus on “what’s right.” 

 “What’s right” are stories that often get ignored or that just aren’t seen as interesting enough to make the news.  A case in point:  my friends, two women who have been partners for decades and are devoted parents and now grandparents, spend their time and energy acting as mentors and positive role models for young LGBT people and their allies in the pursuit of social justice -- they don’t make the news.  The Rhode Island Catholic Bishop who opposes marriage equality by stating that “homosexual activity is immoral, an offense to God, a serious sin” – he makes the news.  This creates an imbalance in the messages that we are exposed to and impacts the stories that come to mind when we think about LGBT lives.

If we are to successfully address issues such as stigmatization, bullying and other public health risks for LGBT people, we must create a culture that, on a regular basis, celebrates instead of denigrates LGBT lives. How do we change this imbalance of messages and create a celebratory culture?  One way to address this challenge is to share the positive stories of LGBT lives.  In our research with over a thousand LGBT people, we have heard stories of personal growth and life lessons that can benefit us all.  We have heard stories about the benefits of living an authentic life and how that brings people closer to their family and friends.  We have heard stories from many people about the importance of being flexible and creative in relationships with their partners so that both partners flourish.  We have heard about how people develop compassion for others and engage in work or volunteer activities to support and benefit people in need.  All of these actions come from positive qualities that people associate with their LGBT identities. 

Our personal stories have power over how we define our own lives and they have power when we share them with others.  Talking with others about the positive aspects of LGBT identities, recognizing the benefits of these identities in individual lives and the life of our communities, is an important part of creating a celebratory culture.  Sharing stories of LGBT lives will help to re-balance and re-focus the conversations that people have. 

Ellen D.B. Riggle is Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Political Science at the University of Kentucky.  She is co-author of A Positive View of LGBTQ: Embracing Identity and Cultivating Well-Being.  For more information about her research, go to www.PrismResearch.org.

Addicted to Addictions

By David J. Ley

A few weeks ago, a woman came up to me after a presentation I had given, on why I believed sex addiction was a dangerous myth. She was in tears, as she told me about her son whom she had lost about a decade ago to the ravages of alcoholism. She told me that near the end of his life, her son was in a very expensive private-pay treatment facility, and called her up to ask if he had ever been sexually abused.

As this mother told me this story, and disclosed this part, a look of anguish creased her face. “I told him that I didn’t think he ever was, and he told me that at the facility, therapists had told him that not only was he an alcoholic, but that he was a sex addict as well. And that his sex addiction must have come from being sexually abused.”

The lady’s son sadly died a few weeks after that, from complications related to his severe substance abuse. For a decade, this poor woman has lived with tremendous fear and guilt, guilt that her son might have been sexually abused, something she didn’t prevent, or even know about. She was anguished that the unknown abuse, and her apparent unknowing neglect, might  have contributed to her son’s tragic life and loss.

I was the first person this woman ever heard, who said that sex addiction was a myth, a moralizing and unsubstantiated label that people throw around callously and casually. I gave her some peace, she told me, because for the first time in a decade, she could see that her son probably hadn’t been abused, and wasn’t addicted to sex. These therapists were merely riding the train of sex addiction, throwing that diagnosis at anything they could lasso with it, regardless of the consequences. If they could convince her son that he wasn’t just an alcoholic, but a sex addict too, what did they get out of it? Who knows? Maybe money. Or maybe they just saw every problem in the young man’s life as a form of addiction, and threw that label around to impress themselves.

A few decades or so ago, therapists believed they could recover memories of abuse, uncover buried memories of sexual, physical and even satanic abuse, in their patients. Because they saw symptoms they thought were related to a history of abuse, it didn’t matter that the patient said “Hey, I wasn’t ever abused.” But it turned out the patients were right and the therapists wrong. Lives were ruined, people went to jail and families were devastated because of the therapist’s well-intended arrogance.

They thought they were helping. But hundreds of lawsuits and settlements have now shown that those therapists hurt people. The myth of sex addiction hurts people too. This is why I’m challenging it every chance I can get. To demand that these therapists be responsible with the power they wield over people’s lives and fears.

David J. Ley is a clinical psychologist in practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He provides clinical and consultative services in numerous other states. Dr. Ley currently serves as Executive Director of a large outpatient behavioral health agency in Albuquerque and maintains a current caseload of clients. He is the author of The Myth of Sex Addiction and   Insatiable Wives: Women Who Stray and the Men Who Love Them.

Religious Freedom and the Obama Contraceptive Mandate

By Stephen V. Monsma

An on-going controversy concerns the Obama administration’s attempt to mandate that under the new Affordable Care Act employers’ health insurance plans must include contraceptive coverage.  And contraceptive coverage is defined broadly enough to include sterilization procedures and what some consider abortifacients.  This has aroused the strong opposition of the Catholic Church—which has long opposed artificial birth control as a violation of its religious beliefs—and some evangelical Protestant groups, largely on the basis of the inclusion of what they consider abortifacients. 

Those who oppose the contraceptive mandate are claiming their religious freedom rights are being violated, since the mandate would require them to act in violation of their deeply-held religious beliefs.  Others claim that this a public health issue, not a religious freedom issue, since  assuring that contraceptives are readily available will protect women from unwanted pregnancies and reduce the number of abortions.  As a recent columnist in the New York Times wrote, “[T]he provision of preventive services without a co-pay does not interfere with a religious practice or ceremony.” 

This controversy—which has generated much heat and is likely to continue to do so throughout this election year—largely turns on one’s understanding of what constitutes a religious organization or a religious practice.   We all cringe at the thought of a government edict telling St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York how it is to celebrate the mass or who may or may not officiate at the mass.  We all recognize this would be a violation of the religious freedom rights we all hold dear.  The organization in this example (St. Patrick’s Cathedral) is clearly accepted by all as a religious organization and the practice (the celebration of the mass) as a religious practice. 

 But this agreement breaks down and the controversy explodes when the organization is not a religious congregation in the traditional sense and the practice does not involve a religious ritual or ceremony.  What about a nonprofit spouse abuse program that was begun by an evangelical Protestant church, is still largely supported by church members, and explicitly states that it is providing services in obedience to Jesus Christ and in his name?  Is it a religious organization?  And are the volunteers and staff who counsel with and offer help to women who have been abused and preyed upon engaging in a religious act? Or what about a Catholic college that takes its religious commitment seriously and seeks to understand the world within the context of historic Catholic thought and reflection?  Is it a religious organization?  And is a professor who seeks to apply Catholic social teaching in her sociology course engaged in a religious act?

As I explain in my book, Pluralism and Freedom: Faith-Based Organizations in a Democratic Society, for historic reasons Americans, and especially the educated elite, tend to exclude as religious organizations and religious practices organizations and practices outside of religious congregations and their core religious rituals and ceremonies.  But such a narrow view of religion is untenable.  It is inaccurate to say that when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., led African American demonstrators out of their churches and into the streets in defense of racial justice he changed from a religious leader to a secular leader.  An official statement the National Association of Evangelicals testifies to its belief that its faith not only encompasses acts of love and mercy but demands them: “Jesus said that those who do not care for the needy and the imprisoned will depart eternally from the living God.”  The nature of religion as extending beyond the confines of church and synagogue was clearly summarized by Robert Bellah and his associates in their classic, Habits of the Heart, when they wrote:  “Yet religion, and certainly biblical religion, is concerned with the whole of life—with social, economic, and political matters as well as with private and personal ones.” 

To me, this means that when a governmental edict clashes with faith-based organizations’ thought-out, long-held, religiously-based beliefs and practices, our public policies should do all they can to accommodate those beliefs and practices.  This is what protects the pluralism and diversity to which we as a society claim to aspire.

Coming back to the current controversy over the contraceptive mandate, this means no church should seek to force its view of contraceptives onto all of society; no government mandate should seek to force faith-based organizations to provide contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs.  Religious liberty and religious freedom rights are indeed at stake here.  We as a people have long lived together with our deepest differences by each group respecting those with whom it does not agree and allowing them, to the fullest extent possible in keeping with public health and safety, to follow their beliefs.  My book mentioned earlier suggests that we need to renew this commitment and broaden it to include the host of educational, health, and social service faith-based organizations that continue to contribute much to our life together.

 

About the author:

Stephen V. Monsma is a senior research fellow at the Henry Institute at Calvin College and professor of political science emeritus at Pepperdine University. He is the author of numerous works for faith-based organizations and church and state relations, including Faith, Hope, and Jobs and Putting Faith in Partnerships.

THE MAIL

By Janet Wedge

My mother was for many years the postmaster (not postmistress) in a small town in Pennsylvania. The document officially appointing her in 1936, signed by Franklin Roosevelt and James Farley (postmaster general at the time), hangs on the wall in my study. She was proud of the fact that she was able to institute home delivery of mail, assign routes, manage a staff of carriers, and eventually to secure a brand new post office for the town.

What I recall most vividly during her tenure is that the post office was a place for residents to meet, to gossip and exchange news, and a place to get help. Ours was a community of first and second generation immigrants, the largest contingent from Eastern Europe. Although my mother was born in the United States, her ancestors, and a majority of the other residents in town, came from Poland. An English-speaking adult, trained as a school teacher, my mother was able to retain enough fluency in Polish to write and translate letters to and from the “old country” for the many patrons who came to the post office and to help them with the complicated process of mailing packages to their relatives at Easter and Christmas.

Today the United States Postal Service is a semi-independent entity, expected to deliver the mail and discharge its other responsibilities, while minimizing costs if not turning a profit. Other companies like FedEx and UPS have siphoned off business from the Postal Service. And other forms of communication—e-mails and social media—have taken the place of letters. I mourn the loss of the art and practice of letter-writing, and it pains me to think that post offices in many small towns are likely to be closed in 2012. I cannot but believe this will be a loss for those communities.

I fear the loss most especially because I, with two co-authors, Louise North and Landa Freeman, have been immersed in letters for a book that was published by Lexington last year, In the Words of Women: The Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1799. The letters written by women to husbands, children, parents and other family members, as well as friends, during the period indicated in the title, document the pain of separation and enable us to glimpse the details of their lives.

Sarah Perkins Hodgkins expressed so poignantly what letters meant when she wrote to her soldier husband in 1776: “Loving Husband these Lines come with my kind regards to you hopeing they will find you in as good health as they leave me and the rest of the family at this time. I received two Letters from you since [you] left home & was glad to hear you were well. I want to hear again. Don’t mis any oppertunity you may have of writing to me Sence that is all the way we have to converse together.”

From another collection of letters compiled by my colleagues and me—Selected Letters of John Jay and Sarah Livingston Jay (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2005)— come Sarah Jay’s endearing references to her letters as “little fugitives” and “messengers of love.” John writes that he has “twenty little things to say” to his beloved helpmeet. I particularly like the lines by Sarah written to her husband on May 10, 1790: “It gave me pleasure in perusing yr. last favor to observe from the date of it that we had both been engaged on the same day perhaps at the same instant in writing to each other. What a delightful circumstance! it is that our thoughts & affections are not bounded by the space we occupy, & likewise that by the invention of letters we can make each other sensible that they are not.

The sentiments of these women almost bring tears to my eyes. I do fervently hope that we as a society will not lose the desire or ability to communicate via paper letter delivered by a real live postal worker based in a local post office.

Read more women’s letters from the period of the Revolutionary War and its aftermath posted on the blog.  

About the author: Janet Wedge is a former high school teacher and adjunct professor at Manhattanville College and co-author of Selected Letters of John Jay and Sarah Livingston Jay.  She is also the co-author of In the Words of Women.

From Obstacles to Options: The Rhetoric of The Women on The Supreme Court Has Expanded

     Armed with her Stanford law degree in 1952 Sandra Day O’Connor discovered that no law firm in California wanted to hire her.  Just one firm offered her a position as a legal secretary. Ironically, a senior partner of that firm, William French Smith, helped O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court years later as the Attorney General. Failing to find suitable work in private practice, O'Connor turned to public service.  Years later, upon her nomination to the Supreme Court, President Reagan tried to ease the public’s mind about the first woman by assuring everyone that she was “a person for all seasons” and of good “temperament.”   In her most often quoted speech, she warns: “This ‘New Feminism’ is interesting, but troubling, precisely because it so nearly echoes the Victorian myth of the ‘True Woman’ that kept women out of law for so long.  It is a little chilling to compare these suggestions to Clarence Darrow’s assertion that women are too kind and warm-hearted to be shining lights at the bar.” 

     In 1991 she gained a sister on the court in Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by then already an historical figure for her spellbinding Supreme Court advocacy on behalf of the ACLU.  Ginsburg noted that when she made her arguments in the 1970s to the Supreme Court, it was comprised of  “men of a certain age” who needed to be “kept in good humor” so she appealed to their personal side by reminding them of their wives, sisters and daughters as she argued for gender equality.  Ginsburg’s life’s work is the rhetoric of enactment as she broke down barriers for women and argued for new laws that would allow men and women to avoid stereotypes.

     Eighteen years would pass until another woman, Sonia Sotomayor would be appointed and in just a year another woman, the academic and political powerhouse, Elena Kagan would take her seat.  In that span of almost two decades, women’s options opened up in America and the change is evident in the rhetoric of the two newest members.  For Sotomayor, her Latina heritage, more than her gender takes center stage in her speeches.  Unlike previous newcomers to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor has spoken often and passionately since her appointment.   In her speeches she repeats the themes of ethnic pride, education and pro bono work and her eagerness to share her own inspiring biography combine to offer a moving message of an American dream realized.

     Elena Kagan writes and speaks with an eloquence and natural humor uncharacteristic in modern communicators.  In her only speech as a justice she urged the graduates of University of New Mexico School of Law to “do what you think matters.”  Speaking as though she were in a college lecture hall, she remarked: “This profession is one in which you can make an enormous difference in the lives of individuals and the welfare of society as a whole.”   Quoting Thomas Jefferson, she said, “There is a debt of service due from every man to his country proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured him.” Like Sotomayor, she urges her audience to give back.  Sotomayor and Kagan’s speeches do not focus on gender, instead they focus on the quality of the work that can be done as a lawyer and the tremendous difference it can make in society.  The rhetoric of the women of the Supreme Court has shifted from a focus on obstacles to include greater rhetorical options. 

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor of communication at Penn State – Lehigh Valley Campus and author of Almost Madam President: Why Hillary Clinton "Won" in 2008, published in 2009, and co-author of the forthcoming Gender and the American Presidency: Nine Presidential Women and the Barriers They Faced, December 2011.  She also wrote Paving the Way for Madam President and Almost Madam President.    This essay is from her forthcoming book:  The Rhetoric of Supreme Court Women: From Obstacles to Options (forthcoming Lexington Books, 2012).  

Let’s Create a New Month for Breast Cancer

By Sabrina McCormick, PhD

In a few days, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) will be over. Thank goodness.

I suppose I shouldn’t say that, but the endless reams of pink products get on my nerves. This might seem insensitive and even cruel. It’s not. In fact, it stems from a respect for the struggle that women have against a horrid disease, and the history of the Month that in no way gives those women the respect due to them.

My annoyance starts with my distaste for the marking of women who have breast cancer with girlish femininities. That is hardly where it ends. Rather, every time I see a pink teddy bear or banner about a fundraising walk, I remember who owns the month and therefore who is telling the world, yes, I mean the world, what to think about breast cancer.

Most people don’t realize that one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies owns NBCAM. In 1984, the Executive Directors of Imperial Chemical Incorporated, Cancer Care, Inc., and the American Association of Cancer Care Physicians met to discuss the growing breast cancer crisis, and how to educate Americans about detection and treatment. More and more women seemed to be succumbing to the disease, but few were using mammography, the only medical test for detection. In addition, the Company had taken a turn for the worse in the late 1970s thanks to over-investment in petrochemicals, plastics and agricultural goods. It reported that even after reorganizing and streamlining, it had to “make greater levels of profitability and market penetration, and change its product profile (Pettigrew 1985).” Pharmaceuticals were the next venture, and it would need a consumer base. That is when the first National Breast Cancer Awareness Week was founded.

Over the years, Imperial Chemicals became AstraZeneca, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, and the owner of the NBCAM logo. Over those same years, the Month grew in popularity and consumption of pharmaceuticals grew. Today, Astra is a multi-billion dollar venture.

Here is my biggest problem with this scenario: women are still dying en masse. 40,170 women died in 2009, to be exact. Mortality is decreasing, but at what cost? 254,650 women got breast cancer last year. My film and book, No Family History, show the tremendous pain and suffering in the lives of women and their families even when women survive.

We need to take a new approach to this disease.

And so, I propose an alternative: National Breast Cancer Prevention Month. We are aware of breast cancer. Now, let’s prevent it. The idea is simple. During this month, we stop exposing ourselves to chemicals, toxins, and unhealthy living that leads down the road to cancer. During this month, we start to change what we consume, and so indicate to the companies making these chemicals that we will not support them. We spend this month telling our legislators we will not vote for them unless they protect us from these chemicals.

Let’s keep our daughters safe. Let’s stop breast cancer before it starts. Let’s stop buying pink and start thinking green.

Sabrina McCormick is a Science and Technology Policy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of the Sciences working in the Environmental Protection Agency, and she is also research faculty at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, and the author of No Family History: The Environmental Links to Breast Cancer.

A Rally for Sanity. A Call for Hospitality.

By Maurice Hamington

After witnessing Fox News commentator Glenn Beck’s August 28 Rally to Restore Honor on the Washington Mall, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart announced the Rally to Restore Sanity to take place on October 30 on another part of the Washington Mall. According to Stewart, the rally is for “the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard; and who believe that the only time it’s appropriate to draw a Hitler mustache on someone is when that person is actually Hitler.” Given the current divisive nature of social rhetoric that demonizes homosexuals, immigrants, and Muslims in hyperbolic language and extreme metaphors, a rally for sanity is compelling. Political speech is no better. Ad hominem attacks and outlandish descriptions that avoid real discussion of issues are commonplace. Recently, Newt Gingrich described President Obama as “so outside our comprehension that only if you understand Kenyan, anticolonial behavior can you begin to piece [him] together.” It is difficult to see how such a description is helpful for advancing understanding of any issue.

What is stunning about contemporary media is that we are witnessing a role reversal in the analysis and delivery of news. When television media was limited to just a few major networks with large news bureaus, television commentators like Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow represented voices of reason. Today, with so many media outlets vying for attention, partisanship and outlandish behavior in the news media are commonplace. With the advent of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and its satirical spinoff, The Colbert Report, comedy shows that once were the purview of attention-getting slapstick, are actually playing the role of calling for rational discussion. The interviews on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report exhibit humor but also flashes of insightful and pointed discussion. Stewart is sometimes tough on political guests, but he always pursues ideas in a context of respect. The Rally to Restore Sanity is another example of the new role played by these comedy shows.

A critical aspect of moving to a more reasonable character of political and social dialogue is hospitality. The word “hospitality” tends to invoke images of behavior at dinner parties or perhaps the moniker for the hotel and restaurant industry, but it is an ancient concept with important implications for how people unfamiliar with one another get along. Ultimately, what Stewart and Colbert (in an ironic style) are attempting to do through their interviews and discussions are promote understanding between people who are unfamiliar and thus sometimes uncomfortable with one another. Their shows feature short interviews with guests from the political left and right as well as academics, activists, and Hollywood celebrities. Hospitality is about an exchange with mutual benefit to the guest and host. Such hospitality does not imply a Pollyannaish level of agreement. In fact, guest and host do not have to agree at all, but through the interaction there is a reaffirmation of each participant’s humanity. Such exchanges seem difficult given the bombastic dialogue that dominates the airways today, but it is ultimately the hope of this torn and hostile world. Sanity and hospitality are refreshing goals in a society obsessed with name-calling.

Maurice Hamington is Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Philosophy at Metropolitan State College of Denver as well as the Director of the Institute for Women’s Studies and Services. He is the editor and a contributor to Feminism and Hospitality: Gender in the Host/Guest Relationship.

Nichola D. Gutgold on the Radio

Nichola D. Gutgold--the author of Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News, Paving the Way for Madam President, and Almost Madam President: Why Hillary Clinton 'Won' in 2008--will be on radio today from 4-4:30 on Culture Shocks radio with Barry Lynn talking about all the women who won the primaries and what it means. She has a lot to say, so listen if you can!

Domestic Violence while Dating: The Yeardley Love Case

By Marilyn Fernandez

On May 3, 2010, Yeardley Love, a University of Virginia student, was discovered by her roommates, dead in her bed, bruised, with a pool of blood on her pillow. Another UVA. student, George Huguely, has been charged with first-degree murder in his former girlfriend's death. Both came from privileged backgrounds, were star lacrosse players and were getting ready to graduate and move on to bright, successful futures. Yeardley Love’s death ended life as they both knew it, particularly for Yeardley, but also for Huguely, albeit in a different way.

Here is what we know based on newspaper reports of the violence. There was physical violence at least in the way he allegedly killed her and perhaps other forms also (such as sexual, verbal, intimidation, stalking) about which we might never know. There are reports of Huguely acting on his jealous rage (attack on a sleeping teammate for allegedly kissing Love), history of alcohol abuse even as a minor, and history of violent past run-ins with law enforcement.

This tragic incident and what we know of the troubled relationship (like the physical violence, anger, stalking, harassment, and property damage) raise several reflections and questions. It presents a classic case of intimate partner violence. It also reminds us that intimate partner violence does not discriminate across age, relationship status (dating), wealth and many other social characteristics (such as gender, sexual orientation, religion, presence of children, etc). Yet, apparently restraining orders and associated legal protections are not available in Virginia for victims in dating relationships. Also, don’t universities have responsibilities in helping their young students protect themselves from such violent and dangerous circumstances? How proactive are universities in this regard?

Other salient questions relate to what could happen to the accused Huguely, if he is found guilty? He could get some form of legal punishment (jail time, anger counseling, treatment for alcohol abuse, and/or community service when he gets out). The type and severity of punishment would depend on the laws in Virginia and how deftly Huguely’s lawyers might be able to get his sentence reduced. But, even if Huguely receives the maximum punishment for his offense, will it rehabilitate him? How does society make sure that he will not offend again? And how about the loss experienced by Yeardley, her family and friends? Yeardley is no more. But, even if Yeardley was alive and even after the legal process is completed, she probably, like many victims of intimate partner violence, might experience a hunger for healing, for a chance to let her abuser and her community know what the violence has done to her and what she has lost because of the violence. Intimate partner violence often silences victims and it is seldom that the victim’s voice is heard in the adversarial legal system. Also, how about the loss experienced by Yeardley’s parents, her siblings, and friends? In addition to the legal adjudication, might some form restorative justice encounters and intervention (face-to-face meetings, letters) with appropriate supervision, be appropriate? Through such encounters they can let Huguely know what they have lost and also how he could restore their losses. Of course, the choice of the restorative encounter format should ultimately be the choice of victim’s family. Restoration might involve requiring Huguely to work with other victims of intimate partner violence so that he understands how violence affects others. In the ultimate analysis, let’s hope that the lessons Huguely learns is that alcohol, anger, wealth, or athletic prowess, nothing, gives anyone the right to harm another.

Marilyn Fernandez is professor of sociology at Santa Clara University and author of Restorative Justice for Domestic Violence Victims: An Integrated Approach to Their Hunger for Healing.

Another Woman on the Supreme Court May Spawn More Women in Politics and Government

By Nichola D. Gutgold

News of Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court is certain progress for women’s equal representation at the highest levels of government. I was a high school senior when Sandra Day O’Connor became the first female Supreme Court Justice, and I remember hearing about it from teachers and thinking that it is only right that women serve side by side with men. Of course, I still feel that way, only now, my feelings are stronger and backed by research.

If confirmed, Kagan would be the youngest justice on the court and notch up the number of women on the Supreme Court to three for the first time in history. The progress is glacial, to be sure, but women in areas previously unavailable to them is, nonetheless, progress. It is especially important for girls and young women to see women serving at the highest levels of government. Female politicians often claim that, in addition to providing important public service, their candidacies and terms in office offer positive models of female political leadership for women and girls. Some studies suggest this may be true. A few weeks ago I interviewed Linda Lingle, Governor of Hawaii and she told me that she is especially careful about how she presents herself in public because she realizes that with so few women at the highest levels of government, all eyes are on her. It is unusual for male power figures to refer to their role model status, because men and boys do not need proof that powerful positions are open to them. And despite this encouraging announcement about Elena Kagan, the reality is that politics and the Supreme Court remain overwhelmingly male enterprises. That we can easily name all the women ever to serve on the Supreme Court --Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor--is evidence of this slow progress.

In my research about women and the United States presidency, I have found evidence to suggest that even symbolic bids for the presidency, like those made by Margaret Chase Smith in 1964 and Shirley Chisholm in 1972 have indeed paved the way for outsiders (any group not included previously) to consider bids for office. Margaret Chase Smith had a sense of this in 1964 when she said, “I would be pioneering the way for a woman in the future—to make the way easier for her to be elected President of the United States.” Shirley Chisholm described the role model effect of her campaign when she said: "...Whether or not the black people are politically sophisticated enough to be aware of the fact that my candidacy is not to be regarded as a candidacy where I can win the presidency at this moment, but a candidacy that is paving the way for people of other ethnic groups, including blacks, to run and perhaps win the office."

Maybe at least in part shaped by sensitivity derived from being the father of two girls, President Obama wrote this message about his nomination of Elena Kagan: “Now, I look forward to the prospect of Elena taking her seat alongside Justice Ginsberg and Justice Sotomayor. For the first time, our nation's highest court would include three women, ensuring a Court that would be more inclusive, more representative, more reflective of us as a people than ever before.”

Indeed to see more women at every level of government may encourage the belief for girls and young women still contemplating their career decisions.

Nichola D. Gutgold is Asssociate Professor Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State University, Lehigh Valley Campus. She is author of Paving the Way for Madam President, Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News, and her most recent Almost Madam President: Why Hillary Clinton ‘Won’.