When Women Win

"Superwoman Ellen R. Malcolm, with Craig Unger, heroically continues to beat the drum for female equality in When Women Win." —Vanity Fair "Malcolm, the founder of EMILY’s List, delivers a lively, fast-paced history of the influential political action committee that helps elect pro-choice, Democratic women. Drawing on interviews with Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, and others, she highlights the organization’s impact on elections over the past 30 years, most notably by giving selected candidates donations early in their campaigns (EMILY is an acronym for “early money is like yeast”). The book covers EMILY’s List’s evolution, since its 1985 founding, from a fund-raising organization to a “multi-pronged, full-service political operation” with three million members that has helped elect 110 Democratic women to the House and 19 to the Senate, including Warren. Malcolm also emphasizes the dramatic effect of Anita Hill’s testimony on the female electorate and the importance of women voters to the Democratic Party. The book shows that EMILY’s List’s biggest contribution may be to make women in Congress seem so familiar that voters are now far more likely to judge women on their records and character than on their gender." —Publishers Weekly "Prose as polished as a campaign speech...narrative of sweeping change for women, coming in the midst of a presidential campaign when one woman in particular could make history.". —Booklist "An inspiring portrait of a gutsy activist who produced a transformation in the political landscape." —Kirkus “Women had to fight first for the vote, and then for the right to be voted for. No one but no one has been more crucial to this on-going struggle than Ellen Malcolm, and no one has more revealing stories to tell, her own plus those of women candidates in all our diversity.  When Women Win will give you faith that this country might one day become a democracy.”  —Gloria Steinem “Ellen Malcolm’s fascinating behind-the-scenes journey of women in politics is a must-read, sure to engage.  It’s an important and richly narrated reminder to women of why, 'If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.'” —Jessica Valenti, founder of Feministing.com and author of Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters “It’s no wonder that three quarters of the women in Congress are Democrats.  When Women Win is both a rip-roaring political tale and an inspirational blueprint—with every trade secret revealed—of how and why Democratic women have been on the rise in electoral politics for three decades.” —Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Leader “This is the inspiring, fascinating story of the most potent women’s political movement in the modern era—now 3 million members strong, built one woman at a time—that effectively broke up the “old boys club” in American politics and paved the way for the kind of grassroots fundraising that made our government more democratic.” —Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont and Chair of the Democratic National Committee

Autorentext

ELLEN R. MALCOLM is the founder and chair of EMILY's List, one of the most successful political organizations in the country. She lives in Washington, D.C. 

Craig Unger is the New York Times *bestselling author of five books on the Republican Party’s assault on democracy. The former editor in chief of *Boston Magazine, he was also a contributing editor for Vanity Fair where he covered national security and foreign affairs. His work has appeared in many other publications including New York Magazine, The New Yorker, Esquire, The Guardian, The New York Times, Washington Post, and The New Republic. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

Klappentext

"A must-read, sure to engage. . . An important and richly narrated reminder to women of why, 'If you not at the table, you're on the menu.'" --Jessica Valenti, founder of Feministing.com and author of Full Frontal Feminism "Women had to fight first for the vote, and then for the right to be voted for. No one, but no one, has been more crucial to this ongoing struggle than Ellen Malcolm, and no one has more revealing stories to tell, her own plus those of women candidates in all our diversity. When Women Win will give you faith that this country might one day become a democracy." --Gloria Steinem In 1985, aware of the near-total absence of women in Congress, Ellen Malcolm launched EMILY's List, a powerhouse political organization that seeks to ignite change by getting women elected to office. The rest is riveting history: since then, EMILY's List has helped elect 23 women Senators, 12 governors, and 116 Democratic women to the House. When Women Win delivers stories of some of the toughest political contests of the past three decades, including the historic victory of Barbara Mikulski as the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right and Elizabeth Warren's dramatic Senate win. When Women Win is both a page-turning political drama and an important look at the effects of women's engagement in politics. "Both a rip-roaring political tale and an inspirational blueprint--with every trade secret revealed--of how and why Democratic women have been on the rise in electoral politics for three decades." --Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic leader "Superwoman Ellen R. Malcolm, with Craig Unger, heroically continues to beat the drum for female equality in When Women Win." --Vanity Fair

Leseprobe
One: A Political Education
 
I was an unlikely political activist. I grew up in the fifties and sixties in Montclair, New Jersey, an upper-middle-class suburb outside of New York. When I was eight months old, my father died of cancer and my mother, Barbara, became a twenty-four-year-old widow. Three years later, Mom remarried and left her job at IBM to stay home and raise her children. Her decision to quit work was never in doubt. That’s what women did in the fifties—if the family could afford it.

When I entered Hollins College, an all-women’s school in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1965, I was an eighteen-year-old preppie who was essentially apolitical. This was an era when men’s schools and women’s schools were more common than they are today, and it did not even occur to me to go to a coed school. I didn’t even really know the difference between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. I’d never heard of Vietnam, much less realized we were at war there, and I didn’t even know that hundreds of thousands of Americans were protesting.

But, in 1968, at the urging of a friend, I went to Philadelphia to work for Eugene McCarthy, the antiwar senator from Minnesota, during the Democratic presidential primary in Pennsylvania. I knocked on doors, handed out literature, and talked to people about the issues. McCarthy won 71 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania. I had just turned twenty-one and was now eager to vote in my first presidential election.

It was 1968 in America. All across the country, the counterculture of the sixties was ascendant. A generation of antiwar protesters and long-haired hippies were replacing buttoned-down, crew-cut frat boys and sweater-and-pearls sorority sisters. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones were on the airwaves. On the other side of the globe, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive against South Vietnam. U…