Click Here To Purchase Pearl, Politics & Power 

Author: Madeleine M Kunin
ISBN: 1933392924

Madeleine Kunin became the first woman governor of the American state of Vermont and was both Deputy Secretary of Education and Ambassador to her country of birth Switzerland under the Clinton administration – the former president provides one of the very complimentary blurbs on the back of this book. Through a combination of personal memoir and in depth interviews with a variety of other leading women politicians, she has provided a fascinating and valuable portrayal of the state of women in American politics and a handbook for women wishing to become involved.

Different chapters outline the various barriers that obstruct the progress of women and Kunin is able to provide seemingly useful advice on how to surmount those obstacles. This centres on the need for good communication skills, the ability to set appropriate priorities and balance the different aspects of life and learning how to deal with criticism and abuse without becoming downhearted or alienated. The importance of a good social network is also acknowledged. These lessons in themselves are not startlingly new but they do have a cogency by virtue of the author’s own experiences and achievements. She is also able to marshal the thoughts of numerous other women politicians, most of them like her members of the Democratic Party, to much the same effect. Practical advice on how to navigate the actual procedures involved in the political process is also provided.

While the sections detailing domestic American politics appear persuasive, albeit lacking in academic rigor so as, presumably, not to scare off the general reader, those sections on international affairs are much less satisfactory. In part this is because of the attempt to cover most of the rest of the world in about the same amount of space as one aspect of American politics, which means some shortcuts suggest a lack of deep understanding. It is also the result of the failure to include ideology in the analysis of politics and gender and in the democratic process.

One of the idiosyncrasies of the American democratic system, which is itself much less unusual or praiseworthy than many writers assume, is the weak ideological position of its leading political parties. This means that elections become dominated by the personal characteristics of the candidates and their ability to raise money to promote their personal characteristics – it also appears to have contributed to the less than ideal concentration on personal piety and instinctive values rather than rational thought among those candidates.  

However, when this model is used to examine democracy internationally, the results show the flaws in the analysis. For example, interpreting the election of Margaret Thatcher as a primarily gender-related issue without the context of industrial unrest in 1970s Britain and the continuing struggle for a place in the world is to miss the point completely. The same is true of the very brief examination of Segolene Royal in the more recent French election: she observes on p.127 that “Some voters saw the election as a choice more between opposing political parties than between personalities.” Well, quite. Most of Europe and much of the rest of the world prefers to elect officials based on the manifestoes that their parties produce and that helps explain why the proportions of women in public office elsewhere are, generally, somewhat higher than in the USA.

Women will of course struggle against prejudice and abuse when they present themselves as candidates against men and expect people to vote on ‘character’ or ‘personality’ issues. Some of the interview respondents seem to have understood this but the author does not emphasise that at all – perhaps because she has no strongly held ideological views of her own or because her desire to make the book inclusive precludes in her opinion the advice to women to develop their understanding of issues based on some kind of ideological understanding of the world.

Having said all this, it is clear that this book will be of great value to any women thinking of entering the world of politics and for all readers wishing to understand the difficulties those women might face in that world and how to overcome them.
John Walsh, Shinawatra University, July 2008