Happy Friday! Welcome to our Media Round Up. Each week we’re collecting and sharing our favorite gender + politics stories. Here’s what caught our eye this week:

As more women run for office, child-care costs remain a hurdle

Lindsay Whitehurst and Christina A. Cassidy, AP

While women are still running for office in record numbers, many still face the issue of child care costs on the campaign trail. And for some parents, primarily mothers, the expense may keep them out of the race entirely. While this hurdle was vaulted in 2018 at the federal level, many candidates at the state level are still fighting for the right to use campaign funds to cover child care.

You can read the full article here.

Republican Women Are in Crisis

Nancy L. Cohen, New York Times

Did you know that there are only 13 Republican women in the House of Representatives, and 8 in the Senate? Compare that to 88 Democratic women in the House and 17 in the Senate. We keep reading about the record number of women who ran for office and won in 2018, but that headline doesn’t reach both sides of the aisle. Nancy L. Cohen looks at how this imbalance came to be, and weighs in on how the 2020 presidential race could affect Republican women moving forward.

You can read the full article here.

Julián Castro Drops Out of Presidential Race

Jennifer Medina and Matt Stevens, New York Times

Yesterday Julián Castro, former housing secretary, announced he was dropping out of the 2020 presidential race. He was the only Latino candidate in the race, and was known for elevating the voices of overlooked and marginalized communities both on the campaign trail and the debate stage. While he acknowledged that this wasn’t his time, he promised that he was “not done fighting,” and we look forward to hearing more from him as the 2020 race unfolds.

You can read the full article here.

Hattie Caraway, the First Woman Elected to the U.S. Senate, Faced a Familiar Struggle With Gender Politics

Nancy Hendricks, Smithsonian Magazine

Hattie Caraway may not be a household name, but as the first woman elected to the Senate, she has earned her place in the history books. Hattie Caraway won a special election to the Senate in 1931, taking over her husband’s seat when he passed away. She then went on to win the general election in 1932, garnering more votes than the six men running against her combined. She faced many of the gendered attacks women still face today, but still went on to become the first woman to be re-elected to the Senate in 1938. In this read Nancy Hendricks shares more of Senator Caraway’s story.

You can read the full article here.

‘Little Women’ reminds us how stuck we have been on judging female politicians

Brandon Tensley, CNN

If you haven’t seen it yet, we highly recommend making time for Greta Gerwig’s adaption of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you may be reminded of the double standards women politicians face today. As Brandon Tensley puts it:

“2019 has been a year rife with prominent examples of how, despite important progress, the culture at large continues to circumscribe women’s lives, narrowing them until it’s squeezed away most nuance. The characters of “Little Women,” on the other hand, receive no such treatment. They contain worlds.”

You can read the full article here.

 

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