Despite legal affirmations of women's rights to abortion, actual access to the procedure in North America is increasingly curtailed. Melissa Haussman analyzes this disturbing disparity between official policies and daily realities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Haussman examines the successes of U.S. antichoice groupsgroups that have extended their reach to    More >

Madam President? The question is not if, but rather when the United States will elect a female president—but that may be the only certainty involved in shattering this most visible glass ceiling in U.S. society.

Who will be included in the field of candidates for Madam President, and why? How will she have to position herself for a viable run at the Oval Office? Once in    More >

Seldom do we notice, let alone explicitly acknowledge, that public policies set distinct parameters for gender. But as Creating Gender compellingly demonstrates, in reality governments do use policy—to legitimize and support some gender-based behaviors, while undermining others.

Looking in depth at the case of welfare reform, but considering a wide range of policy    More >

All men may be created equal in the United States—but more than 30 years after Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment, can the same be said for women? Elusive Equality offers a clear understanding of how government institutions—the executive branch, Congress, and state legislatures, as well as the federal courts—affect the legal status of women.

Surveying    More >

This wide-ranging new study grapples with the increasingly complex array of opportunities and challenges that face women today as both legislative candidates and elected officials.

Offering cutting-edge, original research, Legislative Women expands our knowledge on an array of critical topics. The contributors address everything from campaign finance to the significance of race    More >

From the news room  to pop culture, all signs suggest that the United States is finally ready for a woman in the White House. But is the vision of an imminent Madam President truly in line with today's political reality?  Rethinking Madam President offers a critical assessment of the inroads made by female candidates into the previously male bastion of electoral    More >

Though women constitute 52 percent of U.S. voters, as of October, 1996 only 10 percent of the members of Congress and one of the 50 state governors are women. Why, more than 75 years after they won the right to vote, are women so severely underrepresented in elected office? Why does it seem that, as voters, their influence is not equal to their numbers? Much of the conventional wisdom and    More >

The Other Elites features original essays that provide important insights for both presidential studies and the study of women in U.S. politics.

The contributors to this innovative book have two purposes: to study the career paths of women within the executive branch of U.S. government, and to consider gender as a variable in the study of complex organizations. Using    More >

Are female office holders most acceptable when they most resemble men? Why has a woman never led the Department of the Treasury, or Defense, or Veterans Affairs? Reflecting on these and similar questions, MaryAnne Borrelli explores women's selection for—and exclusion from—U.S. cabinet positions.

Borrelli considers how the rhetoric employed in the selection and    More >

The Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues (CCWI) was the most effective bipartisan organization in the House—until changes wrought by the "Republican revolution" of 1994 threatened its very survival. Irwin Gertzog analyzes the origin, development, and influence of the CCWI and explores how the women associated with it have emerged from near oblivion to reassert their role in the    More >