[Radcliffe] New Blocs, New Maps, New Power (ca. 1982)

Date: 

Thursday, October 22, 2020, 4:00pm

Location: 

Register for virtual event details

By the early 1980s, a new political landscape was taking shape that would fundamentally influence American society and politics in the decades to come. That year, the long-standing effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment—championed by suffragist Alice Paul and introduced to Congress in 1923—ran aground, owing in significant measure to the activism of women who pioneered a new brand of conservatism. The power and organizational energies of conservative women provided one more proof that the suffragists’ notion of a universal women’s voting “bloc” was an illusion. But in the Reagan era, other organized political constituencies rose and matured, exerting significant pressure on elections.

This panel will draw together strands and stories that are often kept separate: the ideas and growing influence of conservative women, the political activism of gay communities, and the mobilization of Latinx constituencies in the ongoing struggle over who gets to vote, who draws the map, and whose vote counts.

Geraldo L. Cadava, associate professor of history, Northwestern University

Moon Duchin RI ’19, associate professor of mathematics and director of Science, Technology, and Society, Tufts University

Michelle Nickerson, associate professor of history, Loyola University Chicago

Olivia Perez-Cubas, communications director, Winning for Women, and vice president, Bullpen Strategy Group

Timothy Stewart-Winter, associate professor of history, American studies, and women’s and gender studies, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

Moderated by Lisa McGirr, professor of history, Harvard University

Registration:

Free and open to the public. To view this event online, individuals will need to register via Zoom.

For instructions on how to join, see the How to Attend a Radcliffe Event on Zoom webpage.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation e-mail containing a link and password for this meeting.

Live closed captioning will be available for this webinar.

More in the "Voting Matters: Gender, Citizenship, and the Long 19th Amendment" conference series