Anticipating Madam President

As a conservative reading Anticipating Madam President makes me realize that the first female President will be a Republican. This book shows just how hard it will be for any women in either major party to become the President of the United States. Everyone from people on the far left to the far right should read this book. It will give anyone who reads it an education on what it will take for a female candidate to be elected and the challenges she will face once in office. No one knows for sure if and when this day will come, but this book gives great insight on what might happen when it does. A must for any political science major.

Ever since 1993 when Margaret, the icon from the Dennis the Menace cartoon, proclaimed enthusiastically to Dennis that "Someday a woman will be PRESIDENT!" the subject has intrigued me. After reading "Anticipating Madam President"it has become much clearer to me why we have yet to see awoman nominated or elected to the office of president in thiscountry. The roadblocks are many and are outlined most effectively in the chapters written by experts in the political arena. The part I found most fascinating was the way the mediatreats woman and men differently when they are involved in running for office. When women candidates appear on television,the interviewer encourages them to share personal stories. However, when male candidates appear, they are often given an opportunity to focus on the ideas they want to implement if they are succesful in being elected. Statistics in the book validate that women running for office are rarely invited to be guests on news shows and most of the time they are not invited back the way male guests are. Be sure to read the Preface because it tells in detail what motivated Dr. Robert Watson to edit thiswonderful book.

Collaboratively compiled and edited by Robert P. Watson (Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science, Florida Atlantic University) and Ann Gordon (Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ohio University), Anticipating Madam President is a impressive consideration of when (not if!) the United States will elect a female President. Studying the realities of women in powerful political positions, anticipating gender-based biases that a female President might encounter, and examining the question of whether a female president will change the nature of the presidency forever, Anticipating Madam President is a simply fascinating and thought provoking discourse of the future of American presidential politics.