We Will Be Heard

In We Will Be Heard, noted political scientist Jo Freeman chronicles the struggles of women in the United States for political power. Most of their stories are little-known, but Freeman's compelling portrait of women working for change reminds us that women have never been silent in the political affairs of the nation. From J. Ellen Foster's address to the 1892 Republican Convention to Nancy Pelosi's 2007 election as the first female Speaker of the House, women have worked to influence politics at every level. Well before most could vote, women campaigned for candidates and lobbied to shape public policy. Men welcomed their work, but not their ideas. Even with equal suffrage women faced many barriers to full political participation. The fifteen case studies of women's struggles for political influence in this book provide the historical context for today's political events. Starting with an overview of when and why political women have been studied, the three sections of the book look at different ways in which women have broken barriers, practiced politics, and promoted public policy. These engaging and accessible stories are even more important in today's political climate, when a woman can finally be a front-runner in a presidential race. Readers of all political stripes will enjoy the history behind modern politics in this story of women struggling to make their voices heard.

Jo Freeman is author of A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics, The Politics of Women's Liberation, and At Berkeley in the Sixties. She is the coeditor of Waves of Protest and editor of Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies and five editions of Women: A Feminist Perspective. For more information see www.jofreeman.com.

Prologue: The Search for Political Woman
Part I: Practicing Politics
Chapter 1: The Iowa Origins of Organized Republican Women
Chapter 2: "One Man, One Vote; One Woman, One Throat": Women in New York City Politics, 1890-1910
Chapter 3: The Rise of Political Woman in the Election of 1912
Chapter 4: All the Way for the ERA: Winning and Losing in Virginia
Part II: Breaking Barriers
Chapter 5: The Women Who Ran for President
Chapter 6: Ruth Bryan Owen: Florida's First Congresswoman
Chapter 7: Marion Martin of Maine: A Mother of Republican Women
Chapter 8: Gender Gaps in Presidential Elections
Chapter 9: Feminism and Antifeminism in the Republican and Democratic Parties
Chapter 10: Gender Representation in the Democratic and Republican Parties
Part III: Promoting Policy
Chapter 11: "Equality" vs. "Protection": Setting the Agenda after Suffrage
Chapter 12: How "Sex" Got into Title VII: Persistent Opportunism as a Maker of Public Policy
Chapter 13: Congressional Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment
Chapter 14: Comparable Worth
Epilogue: The Long Road to Madame Speaker