Transcripts For CSPAN Gender Race And Politics 20170413

Here in the United States or abroad. 2016, we hadll of a campaign that was permeated by issues of gender and race and the class. We had a woman at the top of the democratic ticket for the first time. We had a billionaire at the top of the republican ticket who had a discourse of some population populism. Also in the campaign, we saw differences of campaigns in the past in that sex and race enters in new andscourse different ways. Sexism and racism in particular were overtly discussed by candidates in ways that ways we had not seen in previous campaigns. That is not to say previous campaigns didnt have it, but rarely do we hear sexist or racist comments coming from the candidates themselves. In part due to the campaign, and the ways in which gender and race played in, we expect gender in thee to a large roles 45th president ial administration. We already see, for example, today, in terms of policy, donald trump is promising to make an executive order to build a wall along the u. S. And mexican border. We also saw last weekend, responses from some societies in regard to gender and gender equality was between three and 4 marching across america in response to the administration and gender equality. We already see important dynamics of race and gender, and all of this comes into a political context that for the past eight years or more, have been one of increased polarization of our two principal political parties. On thatl today takes dynamic and interrogates the relationship between gender and race, and partisan politics, and what we might expect in the 45th president ial administration. I have three esteemed panelists. I will introduce them all together now. They will each then present, for 15 minutes. Then we will open up to discussion. The panelists that we have, our ,irst panelist, is enid logan associate professor of sociology at the university of minnesota here. I have asked professor logan to start off because her expectations is in campaigns in particular. She is well known for her 2011 k called she has a new Research Project to look specifically at to the 2016 campaign and young peoples perceptions of gender and race in the campaign. Our second speaker will be in the middle of the table here. Havingns us here traveled from Cleveland Ohio where she is a professor at case western reserve university. She is the floor stone master professor and chair of the department of Political Science there. Professor the professor is on womenser Work Movement and Party Leadership. She comes with us with research that is on a book that is almost complete about gender. Industrializeares countries and what the implications of the processes are. Researchpresent that and is open to questions in the dialogue. Where her Research Findings inform where we how we understand what we have been witnessing over the past couple of weeks of the president ial administration. Our first speaker will be kevin pearson, associate professor of Political Science here from the university of minnesota. In particular, she is dealing with the dynamics of partisanship in congress. Most recent book was published in 2015. Theis pretty disciplined in house of representatives. She will give us background on gender, and race, in todays newly elected hundred and 15th congress and what we might expect in the future. Move into this administration. I will turn it over to professor logan. Prof. Logan i am being timed and i will try to tie myself. Hello. It we are five days after the end on eurasian, to discuss the recent president ial election and the new administration. Im excited to be a part of the conversation, thank you for inviting me. What im going to do today is present some preliminary results from a study that my Research Team and i had been working on on the dynamics of race and with a gender in the 2016 president ial election. This study is a very much is very much still in progress and we are still conducting interviews. Therefore, we have not begun to conduct indepth analysis of the data, but there are a few trends that i can point out and some fascinating stuff coming up in the interviews. I will share some of that with you. What im going to do in the time that i have, is provided background on me, the genesis of the study, discussed the study design and questions, and then i will give you some overview characteristics of the sample and offer some quotes from a few respondents. Dont expect a lot of analysis trends, we dont have trends yet but we have interesting stuff. I would also like to a knowledge there are six members of my Research Team here so, thank you for coming. [applause] prof. Logan and for your work on this. [laughter] im a sociologist here. Ibeen about 12 years have been here about 12 years. I was first drawn to look at race and gender in president ial politics during Barack Obamas first run for the white house. Studies ono parallel on obama. Other topics the first was based on analysis of newspaper articles, blogs, and other forms of public commentary where reporters and bloggers furiously debated the racial meaning of obamas candidacy and his presidency for the u. S. And for whites in particular. Politics, etc. , and they asked what kind of black person is he, what does this mean for the u. S. . I wrote a book based on the analysis of this which came out in 2011. At the same time, i also started an interface interview based study which is parallel to the work i am doing and presenting today. Rather than focusing on the news media and online platforms, it was based on an indepth, series of indepth interviews of College Students and i found, as i was doing the mediabased research on the election, i was having all these interesting conversations with people about what the election meant to them. I wanted to talk about individuals in their everyday lives and try to capture some of that. And so, the result of these interviews were present in a number of presentations, papers, some of it was articles and some of it was incorporated into the book as well. So, as we go forward to today, i wasnt planning to study race gender and electoral politics again in 2016. I moved on to some really interesting work on race in the body and heres a little on the slide. But, as issues of race and immigration and gender became more and more central to the 2016 election and to the candidacies of trump and clinton, i was drawn to write and speak about and studied his issues again. So, i have become really fascinated with president to the president ial with president ial politics as a medium for at the transformation of racial discourse because of the very intense and focused manner in which elections refract conversations about race and gender and emigration and other related issues. And it seemed to me pretty early into trumps candidacy that he was running on a White Nationalist light platform, and that this was resonating really strongly with his supporters. And then when he started blowing his opponents out of the water , one after the other, with his rhetoric on muslims and on mexicans and terrorism and calling to build a wall, and in spite of or maybe because of his very critical comments about womens personalities and the ir physical characteristics, i was like okay, theres definitely something here to make sense of and to parse through. So, i have been working on and thinking about in a a focused in a focused way race, gender and immigration in the election since late last spring. So, i did an article for a british publication and for a blog founded by the former president of the asa, joe fagan. I did a talk at the ias here at a panel looking at race and religion in september, and i was interviewed by the Washington Post for a story about the meaning of the slogan make America Great again. And then also by usa today, though a few days after the election on the proliferation of hate speech and racist graffiti in the u. S. , what were called kkk lights on saturday night live we can. So anyway, and this time i started the together the present study. Perspectives on the 2016 president ial election, and i mention that there was all this stuff coming out about race and immigration and gender, and trumps rhetoric in particular seemed to really strongly resound with his supporters and really strongly repelled those who are opposed to him, including the press in general. And it wanted to make sense of this. So, how do we go from our first black president to someone who seems to be running on a White Nationalist platform . The members of the press were developing their own views of what was happening, which, and and what explains it. Some of it might be based on one indepth profile of an individual person that they sat down with four over the course for over the course of several days, or maybe they did snippets of interviews with a bunch of different people at a rally but i wanted to look at this more systematically using indepth interviews with a large sample of respondents. Sample of respondents. I wanted to be able to trace how different ideas and sentiments were or were not connected in their minds and to explore points of contradiction or conflicts in the world views as well. The best way to do this is through indepth interviews. So, early in the fall of 2016, i begin to assemble my team of research assistance. There are currently 20 of us all together, mostly sociology graduate students at advanced undergraduate students, and proposed a study of College Student views on the election. Im going to talk a bit about why we chose to do College Students in the q a if we are. Oing to have time t i want to keep going. In short, one of main reasons it allows the comparison of the earlier study that i did and as a matter of logistics because we wanted to did interviews and a very compressed timeframe and we knew we had ready access to university students. The Research Team is comprised of several africanamerican whiteiews, six u. S. Born interviews, four asian or asianamerican interviews, two latina and one native american interviewer. We have done race matching as much as possible because we knew that would be an important component of the study design. We solicit participation from undergraduate students here at the university of minnesota which is a mostly liberal leaning campus and at Bethel University which is a christian evangelical college that leans more conservative. Its about halfandhalf. I can tell you more about the uniqueness of doing research at bethel later as well. We were especially interested in gaining and oversample of an oversample of certain student populations, including black students, firstgeneration immigrant students, first and Second Generation asianamerican students, muslim student, queer students and rightleaning or conservative leaning students and, therefore, we conducted targeted recruitment at different student groups. We conducted professors and a number of different departments around that you and at bethel and never could from 15 different courses so far. We posted fliers around campus. So, as i mentioned before, we are still collecting data and have not formally begun the analysis, but im going to tell you some things about the sample and present some quotes from a few of our interviews. How are we on time . Oh, my goodness. All right. So far, we have 85 interviews completed. 68 at the um and 17 17 at at bethel. This table is the separate data , but im going to beginning you the combined data. Im going to be giving you the combined data. Students at the u are generally liberal or left learning leaning where bethel is 5050 split. So far sample is just over half white overall, about 55 due to our strong oversampling of students of color. About a fourth of our student s are of african descent and there are about 10 latino, 7 asian and 7 7 other races. And 7 other races. So, the study questions. After we ascertained basic demographic information on the respondents including their primary political and religious affiliation, we asked questions that are broken into a number of categories and they include how do you feel about the outcome of the election . What did you can tell you about this country or the American People . What explains why trump won in your view, and can you provide us with several adjectives to describe Hillary Clinton or donald trump . There are lots of questions about race such as Trumps Campaign slogan was make America Great again, what does that mean . Do you think it is a thick dust do you think it has anything to do specifically with race, gender or immigration . What do you think explains his strong support among the White Working Class and among collegeeducated whites, and why do so many white evangelicals vote for trump . Im going to skip over some of his other questions. We asked them about specific populations of color, latinas, black voters and et cetera. We also say most critiques of trump races have come from the left because the left itself have a race problem in your view or is is mostly a problem on the right . Then, a third of the questions on the study are about gender. We asked do you think gender are or patriarchy works in trumps favor. We asked a similar question about Hillary Clinton. Is the u. S. Ready for female president in your view . What kind of model of masculinity or manual does trump represent . And does he present a strong model of christian manhood . Thats what we asked of the bethel students. We asked things like how do you think the country will change under the Trump Administration . What are your greatest hopes and fears for yourself or for other groups of people and what do we . O next as a country i am very low on time but im just going to present you with some quotes from a few of the respondents. A few of the respondents. So, first, we have scott whos a conservative white male at the u is interviewed. What did you think of the outcome of the election . He was a never trumpers and he a trumper and he doesnt like trump. I think the election was a resounding success other than the fact donald want. That donald won. I never wanted to vote for him. I do like there is republican at the president ial so that we can get Supreme Court appointments potentially a ridiculously huge republican majority into Supreme Court for years or decades to, we asked him what did the outcome tell you about this country for the American People . He says i think more than anything it tells us that the forgotten part of america is being brought into the national spectrum, like the fly over state. I think a lot of the poor people that have been snuffed over, people didnt have a voice are now starting to have a voice again. And he says but it do think i do think there were some racist sentiments what appear. I think the wall is like the stupidest thing people kind of got swayed by donald. Why did trump win in your view . He says the flyover states did vote for him. I think a lot of prejudices will be coming fo forward. No policies will come forward to put them at any disadvantage. There will be more prejudice in the public populace but no disadvantage in terms of policy. There was liz, a democratic socialist and a white female lesbian at the u. She cried for two hours after the election was finalized. Ae said she was not at all clinton supporter, mostly just against trump. As for what the elections has about the country for her, she says it clearly shows the country is far more racist than she even thought it was. People like her must be more passive than she thought. Heres an interesting thing about her. In terms of adjectives to describe Hillary Clinton, she says experienced and highly intelligent. But also not really trustworthy. Er and she doesnt connect with young voters. As for trump, she says he is incredibly selfish, a manipulator and a 1 er. Let me go to her quotes about gender. We asked her how important was a gender and she says in some ways i think gender did hurt hillary , at the same time, ive heard a lot of white women use that to derail other more pertinent issues. Trump is a disgusting and misogynist man. Let me get that out of the way. We have some serious antiwomen sentiment in this country but that was not the basis of his platform. Its just who he is. All the racism, thats thats not about gender. White women should be really careful. Its all about gender. Its all about sexism. Its all misogyny. I want to give you a few quotes from todd, who is a conservative evangelical at bethel. He says that make America Great again was a genius slogan that had absolutely nothing to do with race, immigration or gender. He said it was a fill in the blank kind of thing. When we asked him why didnt the access Hollywood Tape scientifically damage trumps support among white women . He says its because they really didnt trust the media. They thought it was something that was fake or made that. Trump may have said i may not it didnt matter because it was coming from the media. You couldnt trust the source. When we asked him does trump represent a model of christian manhood, he said no, not at all. I would not cause same as a christian whatsoever. I would say that i think in a a lot of people are pushing for it to be equal, but who you are pushing against is people who are willing to push back. He says a lot of the race problem is coming from the media. The media is causing us to focus therefore causing racial divisions by making us think that everything is racial, whether or not it really is. He says if we want to go away from race and racism, we need to stop talking about race. How important was race in the recent election in your view . He says, for me, it was nonexistent. Could have cared less. I thought trump was racist so it hurt my moral estimation of him, but on a policy level, really any other characteristic, i mean , no. Im white, so it really didnt matter to me. For me, it was a nonissue. Other than the fact he was a racist, in my mind. You describe trump as a racist and pointed out that he espoused a lot of very racist views be. Do you think people who voted for him or implicitly or explicitly motivated by racism as some have claimed . He says i think thats very much a false statement. Now, i could name a kind of racist that voted for trump because also wanted muslims out of the country so yes, thats a true statement. However, he won a lot of votes and there are just not that many races in this country. Racists in this country. I think thats not possible. I dont think thats a valid claim. So, therefore, no, you cannot possibly say that. Some contradictions there, right . Lastly, im going to give you a few quotes from michael it was a. A blackmail. A black male. Described himself as lowerclass. How did you feel about the outcome of the election . I wasnt surprised that a lot of people were surprised. I wouldnt say i was happy but i was not worried and i was not surprised because i understand the level of racism that exist s in our country and i live in that reality. A lot of white liberals dont live in that reality so with the election, people were surprised because you were not paying attention. What adjectives would you use to describe Hillary Clinton . The problem is im forced to acknowledge that im sexy because i am a male at a i want to steer clear of that. I think she wouldve been a great candidate, i think shes professional, business savvy, untrustworthy. I dont think thats sexist. I think thats legit. A bit untrustworthy, successful, a product of the times, and appointed trendsetter. As for trump, he says smart come in sensationalized smart, arrogant,ist dishonest. People get a certain feeling when he speaks and they like that. They cant tell you why they voted for him based on what issues, but they like the feeling that they get. Its not feasible, its not applicable, but it can get you elected. Why do you think trump one . Trump won . He says he is restoring the narrative of the country was built on what just white supremacy. I think he won because of sexism, to be fair but trump is the perfect president because look at what this country was founded on. Which is the exploitation of other peoples bodies and brains and thats what is narrative was. Trump is perfect for what they want. Can we really be surprised that this man won . He says i feel like theyre the most important factor. We havent made any progress as a nation and theyre the only ones i want to talk to. They are the worst sometimes did they are the worst because if it theyre not actually working to address these issues so were not making progress. So, im done. Thank you. [applause] good afternoon. Its such a pleasure to be here at the humphrey school. I have to confess, when i was in high school, i went to Kent State University high school, and they marched us from the high school over to the gymnasium to see Hubert Humphrey give a Campaign Speech when he was running for Vice President in 1968. Ive never forgotten that. It was a really impressive experience for me. I was always interested in politics so that was actually terrific, but i was hopping mad because i i was only i think at that i was probably still 16 and couldnt vote. I was infuriated that it would wouldnt be able to vote. I want to thank christina for inviting me to come. It is really wonderful to be here. The uku. S. To fulbright commission. I was a fulbright scholar for six months in january to june 2014. Today is robert burns birthday, so i had to say it. I want to talk its hostile to ours fast as i can about research. We are interested in how this happens. How is it that overnight, a new can appoint a after parity cabinet coming into office . That shouldnt be too difficult. Here, we have the lovely tony abbott also liberal party but on the right in australia when he came into office after his first election he managed to only appoint one woman, julie bishop, ms. Bishop was the only woman to the foreignbinet as minister. That was the lowest number since 1998 of women in cabinet in australia. How does this happen . We wanted to ask a couple of questions about the impact of gender and the process of gender that might help explain this. Why does womens inclusion in ary across electors, across democracies, vary within the same democracy across . Examine the inclusion of women in cabinets by doing a case study approach. We would look at the rule that was involved in establishing what it meant to form a cabinet. What rules constrain both formal and informal and that we would get data and information however we could, both quantitative and qualitative. We began first by identifying the rules. We wanted to examine the formal and informal rules at the levels of both the political system and also in the selectors political parties. I mean the president by the minister who does the choosing. These will determine the range of action that constrain or empower the selector and also affect the range of choices that the selector might have for people are included in cabinet eligibility or rules that say you cant buy minutes serve as a cant serve as a cabinet member. We want to ask about informal rules. Former rules are written, public and visible. Uniform and within political parties. It doesnt matter who employs them. There is no discretion that the selector has been these roles changing these rules requires formal action. These are not written, not public. Probably need of some of these to have some of these things up where you can see them a third they vary across the party in terms of substance and application. We developed a model. We wanted to see how formal and informal rules and directed in terms of two sets of actors. The first are the selectors, those who make the choices. Those who are empowered to act or constrained to act both by formal rules and informal rules in a political system and in a Political Party. We also wanted to ask who would be eligible to be a minister . Who would be qualified to be a minister . What is the set from which a sec selector would be likely to form his or her cabinet . So, we collected data for seven advanced democracies, some more industrialized than others with the various political systems and parties. You see the list here. We have two president ial systems. We have two continental parliamentary systems and three westminster parliamentary systems. They have a variety of political parties, but the Major Political parties can all be aligned on a leftright dimension. We looked at appointments only from initial cabinets but we collected data on all cabinet appointments from the date of the appointment of the first female cabinet minister. You can see some data. The United States was an early actor in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins as the secretary of labor. She served for four full terms so she was appointed in the initial cabinet. Informationected about the process of cabinet appointment. We looked at pairs of elections in each of these countries that were consecutive, that involved a change of party government. For some of these, these are new governments. For some of these, these are new barack obama coming in an office to office in 2009. Some are second or even third terms. George w. Bush has a second term that begins the appointment for 2005. We did interviews with former ministers, potential ministers, Staff Members and legislative persons and country expert specialists and members who were staffed in embassies. Finally, we turned to political biographies and memoirs. These are the various things we employed to collect our data. We found some interesting things. Racel get to gender and formal rules exist but have little constraining impact on the selector. Even in the United States, a case where there is a powerful second actor. Even in the United States, which is a case where theres a powerful second actor for cabinet appointments. The president may nominate but if the senate says no mother says no,ot we the person may not be selected. Qualifyingles about are the most important. We found three major roles about qualification and we identified qualification as the informal someonech makes selectable, that makes the person potentially ministerial material and a potential appointee. We find that all the rules about qualifying criteria are informal and unwritten. We find in the application of qualifying informal rules, the selector puts together a cabinet not by choosing individuals, but rather by putting individuals into a team. A cabinet is formed as a team rather athan as a set of individuals. The cabinet collectively includes them all. What are the qualifying criteria . The first is political experience and policy knowledge. Experience in government and experience in policymaking or the political experience necessary to get things done. Secondly, we found affiliation oh Qualification Test affiliation we found affiliational qualifications. For how that is employed is a point primarily from your own Political Party and dont appoint strangers. Appointing enemies is fine. But dont appoint strangers. Finally, representational criteria. This is membership in a politically relevant sociodemographic group. They have representational the number of criteria and the type of representational criteria vary. Representational criteria includes region, race, ethnicity, religion or language and party faction. This is the only category that appears across all countries. All countries have a requirement that cabinets now cannot be allfemale. Although that category exists for all countries, the magnitude substantially. This is what all the cabinet appointments look like across time. Thats a quick flash. Is can see the trajectory primarily upwards for women, but not consistently and not in all countries. Australia is the flattest line. It is the worst case. I am not getting further in my presentation in terms of whats on the screen. I will just talk in that case and see where i can get from here. I wont even bother about this. So, let me give you some examples. Race and ethnicity are important representational criteria into two of our cases, the United States and canada. Ethnicity is an emerging representational criterion in the united kingdom. Religion, which have been a primary qualifying criteria in germany, is declining in importance and significance. In australia, chile and spain, there was no mention of race, religion or ethnicity as relevant representational criteria. For candida, the primary is region. You cannot have a cabinet appointment that does not include representation of every single province in canada and not one that represents toronto or quebec. It is the case for canada and the u. S. That all White Cabinets are lower longer acceptable no longer acceptable. I will talk about some of this later in response to questions. Race and ethnicity have become more important, as has gender. Been anas always important criterion. The rule has been changing as countries have established what we refer to as a concrete floor. Ofmean the minimal number women appointed to cabinets every country has one except for australia. That in backtoback administrations of different parties, that number is increased. Sincee United States must 1993, there have been three women in initial cabinets in every administration. Both clinton and bush and obama have appointed four. In many cases, especially with obamas second initial cabinet, the number drops down to three. It is a relatively low number. Many countries have gender parity cabinets. I want to say a couple of things about the concrete floor and why it is important. It is important for women. The concrete floor is important because it establishes womens inclusion in the representational criteria. Concrete floors can silence arguments about merit. Claims that sex based representational criteria are not meritorious begin to diminish. Concrete floors exist in provinces in canada for Coalition Partners and Coalition Governments and these provoke little opposition. When it comes to appointing women to cabinets, concrete floors promote discussions of merit. Floors begin to rise come arguments about this person is not meritorious begin to disappear. We think of the concrete floor as re recasting arguments about as a form of tactics or political struggle over representation and womens inclusion in government. Arguments about merit will diminish. Floors one of the most interesting strategies for us is if theres a concrete floor that relatively high, you can use that floor to leverage the next selector. If you can exact a promise from the Prime Minister or president that he or she will appoint at aast a higher number and gender parity cabinet, selectors do that. The unusual, interesting component about cabinet formation, which is quite different than being elected to parliament. The selector is fully empowered to select, and there is a range of qualified and eligible persons from whom you do not need to choose a large number. There are virtually no veto players, certainly not formally , and there are few informally. This means that a selector who promises to appoint a gender parity cabinet can do so and increasingly there is no penalty for doing so. In this regard, we need to Pay Attention to the ways in which gender might differ, jim demint might differ from race, being black, for example, and it also theres one more thing i wanted to say. Well, i have to leave it at that. In any case, we found a variety of interesting applications of our findings and thus far to the current appointments of a new cabinet under our new president. So, thank you very much. [applause] thank you to christina and the humphrey for having me. Im delighted to be with you here to talk about race, gender and partisan polarization in the 115th congress. We are a few weeks into the one 115th congress and a few days into the trump presidency. We see considerable uncertainty so want to hedge my conversation any predictions i might make on that basis. Political Science Research sheds considerable light on the political context that we face and informs predictions about the roles of race, gender and partisan identity. I will spend a lot of time talking about partisan identity because, in the context of the current congress, where a member of congress is situated in terms of his or her party is extremely important in assessing their ability to be effective legislatively or their role in opposing the Majority Party and getting their voice out there. First, i want to take us back to Election Night 2016. That, remindbefore you that for most of the 2016 election cycle when discussing congressional elections, analysts focused on the potential damage that trumps candidacy would cause the Republican House and senate candidates. Would republicans lose control of the senate . Many predictions suggested just. Suggested yes. What would republican losses in the house look like a republican . Republican Speaker Paul Ryan declined to campaign with then candidate trump and said explicitly that he is going to focus on getting his House Republican colleagues reelected. Trump won and Congressional Republicans avoided significant losses. In part thanks to trump not in spite of trump. So, despite their misgivings about trump, some republicans at least felt some unexpected gratitude. Republicans continue the Majority Party control of both the house and the senate. Most of the membership remained constant. Democrats gained six house seats, not the 20 day wouldve they wouldve needed to take over the chamber. Only two senate seats. Only nine income attorney for we are entering the 115th congress in a highly partisan and highly polarized environment, just as we experience for the last several congresses. Parties are deeply divided on many policy issues. Indeed, party unity is consistently high. We should expect it will continue to be so and that has been for the last decade at least. Here are party unity scores for the average republican member in both the house and the senate at and the average democratic member in both the house and the senate. Members on average boat with their party and against the other party in the high 80s, low 90s consistently. I would expect to see no difference in the congress ahead. And, in fact, electoral competition is also very important in understanding this. Its important to understand the congressional behavior. Its not just that the two parties are deeply divide on issues. They are, but they also vote against one another when the issues are not deeply divisive. When the issues are procedural or even nonideological researchers found. , the two parties today our are teams fighting for control. The two parties have been politics. Toss up fighting for control of the house in the next election. We expect the 115th congress to be partisan and polarized. This means Party Leaders continue to exercise great power over the agenda and over their memberss lives. Has Majority Party leaders have power over the agenda. They set the agenda and it is very difficult for Minority Party members to get their items on the agenda. In the house, even if they do, they are likely to lose. Additionally, Party Leaders reward loyalty. So, all members, regardless of sex or race, have incentives to be loyal to their party. Because, after all, my research has shown that Party Leaders reward members for their loyalty in roll call voting and other partisan behavior when it comes to determining what committees they are on, how much money they get, and whether or not their bills are considered on the house floor. Majority parties and leaders in the senate have less power than in the house in large part because it takes 60 votes to get much of anything done in the senate. So, Minority Party senators have more options than Minority Party members do in the house but their power is still more limited. So, turning now to the total number of women elected to congress. The number didnt change between the 2016 elections and today. The number was 104 women going in and we have 104 women serving in the current congress. The house and the senate numbers changed slightly. The senate added one woman for a total of 21, a historic high, and the house went from 84 84 women in the last congress to 83 today. But, its extremely important to have descriptive representation or womens representation in the house of representatives. This is the branch closest to the people, after all. And women comprise 51 of the american population. So, increasing women, increasing racial and Ethnic Diversity, it brings legitimacy to the peoples house. Although women are not monolithic and are diverse in their own expenses and views, women do bring different perspectives and different used views to the chamber. Women in congress have discussed their own experiences on tanf during important welfare reform debates. They discuss recovering from childbirth, dealing with Breast Cancer and many other issues that are generally specific to women. And, in fact, Research Shows again and again that women are more likely to sponsor bills that deal with issues that disproportionate affect women. Women are more likely to prioritize these issues, whether its sponsorship, cosponsorship, offering amendments. My own research has shown women in both parties are more likely to discuss the policy implications of legislation for women, and that when giving one minute speeches on any issues that members choose, women are more likely to discuss women in the context of whatever issue they are talking about. There are considerable differences between democrats and republicans in their policy positions. And these differences have actually become more pronounced. I will get to that in a minute. Its also important to note that womens demonstrated focus on womens issues does not come at the expense of work on other issues. In congress after congress , political scientists have found women sponsor more bills do. Men women are better at bringing federal monies back to the district than men are. Women are more likely to be legislatively effective , according to a very complicated algorithm figured out by some political scientist. Women are also more likely to deliver speeches on the house floor. This comes as no surprise that women come to the u. S. Congress with more preparation than men do. Although men and women when at at the same rate, women are more likely to have previous experience, and for democrats , actually raise more money. But, what about partisan differences . In the 2016 election, 54 of women voted for Hillary Clinton. But, the gender gap between republicans and democrats when it comes to womens representation is much more pronounced. Women in both parties may be more active legislators on issues that disproportionate affect women but today they are on opposite sides of those debates, especially in the house of representatives. In the two parties are very unequal in terms of their composition of women. 32 of the House Democratic caucus or of all House Democrats is comprised of women, and 33 of senate democrats. Compare that to just 9 of the House Republican conference, and 10 of the Senate Republican conference. So, many fewer women, many fewer republican women in congress than in the electorate. The republican Party Leadership in the house and senate is almost entirely white and entirely male. Cathy Mcmorris Rodgers was renamed as House Republican conference chair so not a top leadership position but nonetheless a leadership position in the house and mimi walters was named as a sophomore representative. But thats it. Only two republican women will serve as committee chairs, Virginia Foxx and susan brooks in the house and two republican women will chair senate committees, Lisa Murkowski and susan collins. On the Senate Democratic side, patty murray washington was first elected in 1992 will be the democrats number three leader. This dynamic in terms of the proportion of women in each party in congress has been shifting since the 1980s. Since the 1980s. For republicans, the percentage of women has remained remarkably constant. But, for democrats in general, its got up with a slight downtick in this election. Among democrats, the womens caucus is more racially diverse than ever in the 115th congress. Women of color are not better represented than ever with a recordsetting 38 women of color, 35 democrats and three republicans serving in the 115th congress. Of the 14 nonincumbent women elected, nine are women of color. The number of women of color in the senate has quadrupled to four. The first asianamerican women senator in 2012 will be joined by Kathryn Cortez masto of nevada, the first Latina Center in the u. S. , and Pamela Harris of california, the first black woman to serve in the u. S. Senate in two decades and Tammy Duckworth of illinois will be one more note on women in congress. Women in both parties research thats i want to emphasize that the women had an opposite sides of these two issues. So, for example, during the debate on the Affordable Care act, we saw with women in both parties were disproportionately likely to speak but the rule, amendments of dealing with abortion, but in all of these speeches that women were on different sides of these issues. Democratic and republican women today are very divided on these issues. Going back to the 1990s, women in the Republican Party were more likely to be on both sides of these issues by today with today, with increased partisan polarization, that dynamic has really changed so the women in both parties are very partisan. We also see this in their speeches. Turning briefly to raise and race and representation in congress. Racial and Ethnic Diversity in congress has increased to its highest point yet. People of color account for 20 of the 59 new members of the house and the senate. Overall, blacks, hispanics, Pacific Islanders and native americans together, nonwhites make up 19 of the current congress. By comparison, these same groups comprise 38 of the nations population. So, as this figure notes, were at a high point point in terms of representation in congress , but the gap between the congress and the u. S. Population is actually even bigger than it was during the 1980s. Importantly, in terms of power inside the house in this congress, most racial and gender diversity is concentrate in the Democratic Party. White men but not whites are a minority within the Democratic Caucus in the house. Increased racial and gender diversity enhances representation and deliberation inside the house. Research shows that women are more likely to prioritize issues that disproportionately affect women. We see the same dynamics among africanamericans, hispanics and asians in congress. In part because their efforts to sponsor legislation and in part because of the efforts of the congressional black caucus, the congressional hispanic caucus, in groups where members get together to look out for the collective interests and do a better job than frankly there ir other democratic colleagues in looking out for the interest s of their particular group. Its a pretty white male group , aside from cathy Mcmorris Rodgers. The republican conference is overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male. 21 women, a quarter of all the women in the house are republicans and 11 people of color. Inside the House Republican leadership, the House Freedom caucus, a group of about 40 conservative republicans who differ a bit of an ideology and greatly when it comes to strategy is an all white and allmale group. When it comes to House Democrats, Minority Party leader nancy pelosi was reelected as shes done this by being a fierce partisan, by bringing democrats together and by raising record amounts of money. She is an interesting example of gender and partisan dynamics inside the house of representatives. On the one hand, she sort of goes against conventional wisdom that women perhaps do a better job reaching across the aisle. Theres no reaching across the aisle when it comes to Minority Party leader nancy pelosi. On the other hand, researchers have shown that shes done a take a good job of building consensus within her own party across various ideological groups. It is also quite clear that she really embraces and celebrates the diversity inside the Democratic Caucus. That is evident both in terms of the democratic Party Leadership and you never see a press conference that has nancy pelosi in it if she werent surrounded by a Diverse Group of democratic members. In the senate, record diversity in its membership, but not Party Leadership. On the other hand, i can patty murray as their number three but the dynamics for republicans in the senate are different. Susan collins and Lisa Murkowski , two more moderate republican women senators, have the opportunity to be key players in the 115th congress. Both because theyre among the republicans who might be most likely to defect and because theyre both legislative active. Just today, the news came out that senator collins is looking a Compromise Health care bill. You need 60 votes to get most everything, except for budget reconciliation. Some of the more moderate might play a more significant role. And, with that, my time is up and then some. So, thank you. [applause] so, we are now going to go to corrections. Russians. Go to questions. We have the room until 4 00. Id like to start off with the first question, but then we will have a wireless microphone so please raise your hand and get her attention. I want to start with a question for Karen Beckwith and ask her to followup on her comments at the and of her presentation. Tell us more about your observations of how the Trump Administrations selections and cabinet Selection Process compares to what youve seen historically as patterns in the United States and comparatively to other countries . Well, thank you for that question. Our new president has promised to be different. Is, at leasteed he in regard to cabinet appointments. If we think about these criteria for qualifications for components to cabinet, thats appointments to cabinet, criteria for qualifications for appointments to cabinet, experiential criteria, affiliation or criteria and representational criteria, its very interesting to me that he is violating all three in terms of previous practice. These are policy expertise and political experience of his various nominees he has to have no policy or government experience whatsoever, ben carson who will head housing and urban development. The president has his own party in the senate now and even without that it would be difficult for people to turn away. The previous secretary of energy has argued that you learn on the job, its all about nuclear energy, not about being from an oilrich state. These are the grounds on which appointment battles are cast. But experience appears to count not very much. Positions in germany are the secretary of state, the secretary of the treasury, secretary of defense and attorney general. Asse are consistent important appointments. Of the water appointees, only generalnee for attorney degree the list of secession is under educated. So, this is very different. Some of the nominees that our new president has put forward to the senate were his opponents throughout the campaign. I suggest you take a look at some of the things that betsy devos had to say about President Trump during the campaign. He had among his nominees only three who were early endorsers and campaigners for him. I want to Say Something about representational criteria. Hes dropped below the concrete floor for the United States in only nominating to women. He has only nominated to people of color. Nominating two women. He has only nominated two people of color. It puts them at parity with in 1977. Ter in 1977. On representational criteria, this is quite different. The next nomination was made from sonny purdue to be the secretary of agriculture because he was the last nominee in the line of nominations. There was some discussion about the overly white maledominated nature of the list of nominees. There was encouragement to consider a woman for that position, and there are some women who were on the list of potential department of agriculture secretaries. But it was decided to nominate perdue. Because almost all the qualifying criteria that has been established across time are being violated, and there have been sanctions in terms of perspective pushback. The same time in representational terms, sensitive to this, nonsensitive enough, but sensitive enough that President Trump has said there will be more performance of women and people of color at subcabinet ranks, which i can only say thanks a lot. [laughter] hi, another question. I was wondering if you found that there was a woman as selector of Prime Minister, did that make up that is an interesting question. Thatcher of britain and merkel of germany, and we found it makes note difference. It is not that women do badly, but men do just as well. Many of that year under of the gender. The cabinet are male appointed. We did not have much difference. Political party does not make difference. Once the concrete floor is established, it is interesting if you aggregate by party, it is generally but not exclusively that the same party, once it comes back in the office and can than itt does better did previously. If we look at the data in the aggregate, it looks like this it islope, but by party lessed increased to do better, but right parties are moving web. It depends on the country. Rightwing parties are often the first movers in jumping the number of women candidates. Movejumped, all parties and it things like they move in the same direction. The political system makes no difference. And the party system appears to make notes no difference either. If i could just add, this should give us hope about strategy because it means we should be able to leverage whoever the selector is. If we can make the person promise and we can point to what his or her party has done in the past increases the opportunity from women in cabinet. It is important to have women in cabinet. I was not thrilled that margaret important but it is women are in public office, and if it means we are missing, it means were secondclass citizen, subordinate citizens to the political system. So that needs to be changed. Other other questions from the audience . I will build off that question, but directed to professor pearson. Could you speak to the changes in the parties and how they candidates . Is that why we are seeing an increase of diversity in the parses parties . Ms. Pearson thank you for the question. The answer i think is partially. Nknown and complicated but you are referring to the big increase in gross of Democratic Women in both the house and the senate and the same dynamic is true in state legislatures across the country, compared to the smaller numbers of republican women. This dynamic is repeated in terms of womens candidacies, not just to get elected. Starting at the level of primaries for the u. S. Progress. Back research that goes several decades and shows that with a few exceptions, in most election cycles, women and men will when their congressional primaries as well. Increasingly in recent years, Democratic Women stand a slightly better chance, but a significant chance of winning their primaries compared democratic men. Republican women and men about the same. A republican woman running in all districts, i suspect these results would be different because Experimental Research has suggested that women public and women face because ofchallenges stereotypes that women are more liberal and that could be womenmatic for elegant running in primaries and helpful for Democratic Women. Theee some evidence of helpfulness for Democratic Women. It is the case that Democratic Party networks and that includes the Democratic Party, party gatekeepers, leaders, Interest Groups, womens groups, and to inmore actor active recruiting Democratic Women than republican groups. That is not to say there are not republican groups, but there is more of an emphasis among the Democratic Party, democratic Interest Groups in terms of determining who is to run. Were not seeing increases of women running in either party. Gender parity in congress is a long way off despite the fact that when women run a tend to win at the same rate. Those results are because women, at least democrats, raise more money, and among both parties women have more experience. It is still the case that in order to do as well as men at politics, women have to be better. I will ask professor logan a question. You mentioned in media during your presentation, and im interested how the media and College Students perception of was affected by this disbelief in what the media is reporting on regardless of source. And across social media, and from big news sources, just totally not trusting sources, and how does that affect the sexist and racist rhetoric going on in the campaign . Professor logan what i have seen his comments of distrust of the media were coming from our conservative respondents. Respondents. It was some of the stuff you hear in the wider discussions of conservative point of view. It was interesting for me to hear from some of the liberal respondents, like michael who a quoted at the end of who talked about how he had been influenced by the perspectives given on Hillary Clinton that were found on youtube, social media, and that was influential and he had to step back because he realized some of those portrayals are very sexist. That is one thing that is one of the things that will continue as we look into the this and not for young people not just looking at the role of the rain main street media or the print media or the main newspapers, looking at the role of social media and what they say about how social media influences their belief. Thank you for the question. The issue of legitimacy has since the campaign began. For me as a feminist, it has been a nightmare that Hillary Clinton was treated on equal who is soth somebody unequal in terms of experience, capability, representation, etc. That dialogue has been represented to john lewis who is brave and said he did not feel that President Trump was a legitimate candidate. Wondering aimed your research, have you found anywhere else in the world this unbelievable dynamic of a highly confident, qualified person with regard to her personality being overtaken by in this case a woman by a man who is so illegitimate and inexperienced and incapable of being a leader of a democracy . I can just say a little bit on that in terms of that issue is coming out a little bit in terms of why trump one or why he was supported by people who voted for him. So it seems like both of our more considerable conservative and liberal student mean that people did not vote for him so much based on the , thes or the policy things ideas that he had, but based on the feeling they had about him were the feeling that he represented. The idea that he was antiestablishment, that he was not part of washington, that he was not politically correct, the idea that he was all these things, that he was not all the things that they said politicians needs to be, and he was all the things that were said to disqualify you as a candidate these were things that made him very appealing to his supporters. I remember at the beginning of the election having some other liberals and lefty people having he doing sohow is well when he knows nothing, when he kicks saying all these things, when this will render him a legitimate, this will itnk his candidacy no, did not. It made him stronger. I think that kind of the fact that he was the anticandidate candidate had a lot to do with what was appealing about him to his supporters. It was clearly not a coincidence. And so there rose a rejection of these rights area there was a rejection of these criteria that we think of these as qualifications and it shows up in the cabinet appointees. They were under educated and under experienced an underqualified, but still they are the choice of the day. I just want to say one other thing. Even with supporters who were persuaded to vote for the new president , more numbers of people were not persuaded. We have to reason that he was in where his supporters were, that they were concentrated in states that were important in the electoral college. Providesete floor legitimacy to a president who can provide his cabinet, and say i have acquainted this i pointed many persons of color. Those numbers dramatically and in terms of what i mean in terms of persons of color, starting with jimmy carter, who appointed and she harris in 1977, served throughout the entirety of his administration. Issues of legitimacy arise in cabinet around criteria that have been established in the past, and you would interesting to see the level with the is daft with which his cabinet is with which is cabinet is welcomed or not. A different take on legitimacy, but throughout the nominating contests, not very many republics republican elected supported trump. That goes against what scientists know about nominating contests in general. The candidate the most endorsements from elected party governors, legislators, etc. , is the one who tends to get the nomination, and that is not what happened here. Do you know who that was . Ms. Pearson jeb bush, initially. A lot of elected republicans just sat it out. So you could argue and many did at the time that it was a breakdown of the party nominating contest as an institution. But once trump got the nomination, it gave him a legitimacy that well, certainly was questioned during all the Campaign Events for most republican voters. Partisans, 10 republican partisans, voted for trump. We have time for one more question. Thank you for being here. We appreciate what you had shed, and i am sorry we did not have an hour for each of the presentations. But i wanted to ask weekly, you have logan, i know not done the analysis of the research yet, but are there things that are standing out in particular, something surprising, or anything that is resonating from what you have seen so far . Professor logan there are a few things i have noticed. I might have mentioned this at the Hillary Clinton supporters come all the liberal students we talked to had a lot of native things to say about Hillary Clinton even if they were not happy to say that. This, but she say is really untrustworthy and she seemed to be pandering. So that the support for Hillary Clinton was very tepid, and most of the people who voted for her seem to be voting against trump more than anything. It was interesting to find we had a question of adjectives to describe Hillary Clinton and donald trump, that the conservative students also had a lot of very negative adjectives to describe trump. Most of them were not trump supporters, they were definitely not liberty, so they either voted third party or grudgingly toward trump, but they called him a liar, manipulator, immoral, sexist, and racist. But still they did not love him, but he was better than Hillary Clinton. She was the worst thing of all time. That is something that i found interesting, that there were so many very strong natives for each of the candidates from the people we inteie