Bringing Women In: Gender and American Government and Politics Textbooks

摘要

This study of 12 introductory American government and politics textbooks shows that their main narratives still focus largely on men's experiences as political actors and pay little attention to women's experiences. While on average just 9% of pages included in-text references to women, 28% of images and 17% of sidebars, tables, figures, and charts included women. Especially in-text references to women focus almost exclusively on white, middle-class women, thus ignoring the complex reality of gender, race, ethnicity, and class. This article offers suggestions for how women's political experiences could be integrated fully into these textbooks, rather than relegating women to a sidebar or photo. I focus on three main topics within the literature on women and politics: ongoing discrimination against women in the political sphere; different life experiences that affect them as political actors; and the real political contributions of women that are usually overlooked. I argue that integrating the experiences of women would offer students a more nuanced and comprehensive view of American government and politics. I conclude that bringing women into American government and politics textbooks is both possible and worthwhile.View full textDownload full textKeywordsAmerican government, gender, textbooksRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2012.667676