an organized workplace. of theond phase industrial revolution occurred here in america. again in a very confined place. around detroit and largely around pittsburgh, and a confined geography much like silicon valley is today. if you look at the organization of the workplace, it did not change much with nearly textile mills and the growth of the steel mills and later, the growth of the automobile factories. again, what i suppose people called lou collar workers went to work in those factories and over time, a lot of white-collar jobs were created in and around those factories. but the factory itself was also isolated from consumers.

the feedback between consumers was to say the least very lengthy. that's as much history as i'm going to bore you with this morning, but i wanted to go down memory lane because i think it's going to accentuate something. we call it the data factory. i want to spend a couple of minutes explaining the powers that have enabled the enormous rise of the data factory in the last 10 years. so a few quick thoughts. first, the explosion of bandwidth and the change here has been unlike anything anyone has ever seen before in any

comparable time over the last 25 years. the second is in storage. it's hard for us to imagine today that about 14% of stored information existed believe it or not on vinyl records. then we all know what has happened with computers and computation. 25 years ago, most of the computing power in the universe was in a pocket calculator. obviously, that has shifted dramatically as the years have gone by.

the other thing that has helped change everything for consumers and workers everywhere and these data factories is the absolute massive explosion of applications in the last 40 years. hard for us to conceive today when we have as you see on the right, millions of apps available on a little device that just 40 years ago, there were barely 200 computer applications running on the most popular set of computers in the world. this is the final idea about what has happened. think back to the loom, the assembly line, and the tools in the automobile factory. what has happened to the cost

and dispersion and distribution of tools in the last two decades? there has never been anything like it ever in human history. imagine it is 1973. the samsung or apple iphone, the phone you hold in your hand, the equivalent cost of that computing power was about $33 million. bear in mind, those ibm computers did not have cameras, didn't have video, audio, they didn't have accelerometers, they didn't have gps.

never before have human beings been furnished with tools as powerful as the smartphones you are able to buy at the drop of a hat today. the other thing i would like to put into perspective is the enormous explosion in the size of these tools. the numbers you see on the slide illustrates the peak production anywhere in the u.s. of automobiles that peaked in the early 1990's at just over 15 million. washing machines that have changed lives over the last 100 years for everybody in homes and apartments. a peak of 17 million. this year, around 700 million, $33 million computing facilities will be put in the hands of people all around the world.

there has never been anything like it. the other thing that has changed, particularly if you are a small business, particularly if you're an individual looking to set up a small business is what has happened to the price of all the other tools that you need to operate your business. look at the left-hand side and imagine what all of these things cost 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago. today, most of these functions are free or very close to free or can be rented by the sip. same goes for the different

functions you need to operate, whether it's a big company or small company, the services that were unavailable or you paid an arm and leg for a decade ago again are verging to free. so you might well ask at this juncture, what does all this mean? i think the changes are extremely profound and it has given rise to something that -- for a lack of a better days -- lack of a better phrase, we call the data factory. let me explain the composition. you will look at the next few slides and you can think of other names that should be on the slides, but you are right. there are companies that specialize in the matching of labor, linkedin obviously being the largest, but there are

specialty companies that operate in the center matching demand and supply. there are a variety of companies that do the same for the movement and raising of money, ranging from a company like kick starter and companies like kick starter and indy go-go that have helped a lot with unconventional money raising to companies that are not on this slide like paypal and strike, but center, the largest and emerging category of companies in these data factories are the real low bus data factories -- real global data factories. the range and the extent of tools -- think back to the loom and the auto factory, that they

furnish tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people around the world with. this has never happened before and it is changing the complexion of our entire lives, starting with the work place. this is a true representation of the data factory. it has far fewer employees and workers than some of the other examples i gave you earlier. you will also notice that here, and this is an attempt to characterize tools supplied by the data factory how a company like google and amazon and linkedin and others, tools that allow people to contribute and enrich the data factory without

the data factory having to pay for anything. the data factory sits in the middle, far more closely to connected to consumer then any auto factory ever was. who in turn provide immediate enrich feedback and it is all maneuvered and massaged by the central -- central data factories. i will spend a moment explaining some of the implications of all of this. here, i to get across the notion that the data factory benefits from unpaid contribution from lots of people. here, to give a sense that the data factory is actually selling a whole bunch of services that,

most importantly, allow the purchases of those services to make money for themselves. you can see now how powerful the addition of these data factories is becoming. so here is one example. this is the only example i will give you of unpaid contributions. think youtube, think yelp, think a bunch of other services and is the same precise thing. linkedin, about one year ago, started to beef up its content effort and invited people to contribute content. among the contributors are bill gates, and the president, people like jamie diamond, they are all contributing content to linkedin for free. the result has been linkedin now ranks among one of the biggest

business sites online in the world and the result has been that traffic on linkedin today has multiplied eightfold thanks to a whole bunch of unpaid contributions. more interestingly, i would like to talk about what happens when tools are put in the hands of individuals and i'm going to ripple through a whole bunch of slides quickly -- quickly, starting with three or so examples. i know you heard from the founder of lift earlier, of places really helping people who otherwise would be lost in the low-paid part of the american

service economy. here is what uber has done for one fellow named sam taylor. this is a local shopping service where this college student is able to gain employment, make money, pay rent in a fashion you would not have been able to do. the same is evident as what i would think about as dollar per hour jobs. here are some examples of what the tools of the data factory should it out to people all over the world. ebay, going to start with the bigger examples and work through to the smaller one. ebay has enabled 25 million

sellers around the world, including people like those at the bottom of the slide that they could not have managed before ebay. same thing for google which transformed a small business called king arthur flour thanks to the way in which it enabled a little company to get business area here is an example of youtube. gone from an unknown, but inc.'s to the power of youtube's data factory, they now have a thriving business and following of their own. but probably the biggest data factory in the world is amazon. this fellow here has a sled business that was on its back before amazon came along. thanks to the amazon tools all

over the world. kendall has put hands in the tools of authors that have transformed their business and allowed authors to get paid far more quickly than they would have done yesteryear. in the course of perhaps 60 months since the inception of kendall and kendall direct publishing, there have been a whole bunch of million titles sellers and people making far more income than they could have done in their previous life as normal writers.

amazon web services, here's a slightly different example, but it's the same thing, taking pinterest from this tiny little service to 17 million people with fewer than 12 people at the heart. a few other very quick examples, a lady called kerry uses a service and thanks to that, she distributes products all over the world. the tools did not exist 15 years ago. air bnp -- people were making a significant amount of money and they were helping put kids through school, etc.. again, the tools did not exist and this new data factory is enabling a lot of that. trulia, this lady had a very small real estate business in san diego before the advent of the company and thanks to the services it invites her, it has allowed her not only to

transform the business but to buy a business. this lady is in canada. this lady has business all over the world thanks to the services house divides. here is an example of square. they make bracelets and costa rica that employees college students or contracts with college students all over the country that can sell these bracelets and provide income for people in costa rica thanks to the square service. two final examples and then i will begin to wrap up really quickly. unity, there's something very similar for the whole ecosystem of video developers. i expect you all to know about individuals who have been able to build businesses thanks to

etsy. this means life is very tough for most people in america. it means life is very tough if you are poor, if you're middle class, it means you have to have the right education to go work at a place that has companies on the right side. google employs 40,000 people. general motors used to employ 700,000 people. today, apple including retail employs 80,000 people. if you are not like us, it is tough. here's what the median household income is done at last 40 years. it is brutal. here is what happens to the memo -- minimum wage in america over the last half-century. we are very lucky here, we are fortunate and we belong in a really small minority.

despite this explosion of tools, it has not had much of an impact on gdp despite the fact that 20 million businesses in america are self-employed is mrs.. -- businesses. despite the fact that those americans now work in spite of the tools i just mentioned, hasn't had much of an effect on gross gdp for two reasons. one, because of the decline of the manufacturing in america and the second is because the difficulties we have had attracting talent to america and keeping them in america. 600 or so to people from spain where there are thousands of people who would be qualified to come work and help put the

personal revolution on its way. but the most important thing and the reason it has yet to bring the benefits to america we have talked about with those earlier revolutions is that this is the first shift in industrial and technology revolution that has occurred simultaneously around the world. this is the first shift in industrial and technology revolution that has occurred simultaneously around the world. textile mills were centered in the middle part of england. the internet, the explosion of these data factories is occurring all over the world. so i give you examples of these companies, the same thing is happening in different geographies, most noticeably in

china. where companies like alibaba are doing very similar things that american companies are doing today. today, more than half of the most valuable internet companies in the world are not in the united states. that has never been true for the emergence of a huge, abrupt shift in the organization of human work, that has never occurred in human history before. i see my time is up. you now all have a caffeine break and i appreciate very much being here on behalf of sequoia. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> on the next "washington journal" a look at what some advocacy groups have land for 2014.

land --ing with anna gal fromning with anna galland moveon.org. that is sell by andrew roth on club for growth. roth onwed by andrew club for growth. >> on the cares about health insurance, it is more than that. you look at obamacare. upon the care is an attack on the commerce clause. it is not supposed to kill commerce or competition. that is the commerce clause. trade and commerce. as jersey in pennsylvania were fighting with each other.

the commerce clause was pro- trade and pro-commerce. there was the notion that the commerce clause could be used by congress to compel individuals to do something against their well and against the best interest and in particular to force the percent to enter into a private contract with a private company. the private companies forced to offer a policy it does not want to offer. an individual is forced to pay for it the companies are forced to provide it. that is so absurd and so hypocritical to our founding. the government can force us to do all kinds of things that we do not want to do. offerday, a best-selling and radio personality, mark levin, we'll take your calls and questions "in depth."

the first sunday of every month on c-span 2. and online for this month's the tv club, "the liberty amendments." go to boot dvd out court -- booktv.org. >> about 10 or 15 years ago we started looking at the census data. out.hing very strange pops when you look at where the profits are multinationals, look , if you lookurope at the data on where the rockets are, italy, france, germany, hugely -- disproportionate amount of profits within ireland. that was one indication that something was going on. rex moore with marty sullivan, chief economist of "tax analysts." sunday night at 8 p.m. on c-

span's "q&a." coming up next on c-span, a look at the impacts of conservative women are having in politics. any discussion about women pursuing a second career. later, some of the national black caucus of the annual conference in tennessee focusing on civil rights. from the university of california, berkeley, a discussion about conservative women in politics. the featured speakers are a political science professor at --eca state university and this is an hour and 15 minutes. [applause]

>> there we go. ok. thank you so much for coming. i want to thank the berkeley center for right-wing studies and the cosponsors, the graduate school of journalism. i also want to thank john mccain. why would i want to thank john mccain? as most of you know, in 2008, john mccain surprised the united states by nominating alaska governor sarah palin to be his running mate in the presidential election. and i remember that moment. i was at a politcal science conference and my first book had just come out on conservative women. it was academic press. i'm sure a few people thought it might be interesting. then i saw sarah palin on the screen on national television and i thought john mccain is promoting my research agenda. so i always feel it's important

to thank john mccain when i do talk about my research. speaking of research and i want to follow up on something that larry said. what i am presenting today is scholarly work and really intended to create understanding of conservative women. i am a women of politics scholar and i saw a lack of attention to ideological diversity among women in the scholarship that was being published. so i became very interested myself and exploring questions about conservative women and also wanting to highlight their important contribution to politics. no matter where you stand politically, i think it is really important for us to understand the role that they play in politics. now back to palin -- references to her general maternal status influence the campaign when she was running for president. -- influenced the campaign and discussions over whether mothers of young children should seek elected office. of course, she played into these

debates by bringing her children on stage for events and referring to herself as a hockey mom. discussions of mothers in politics made their reappearance in 2010 when palin herself was advocating for and campaigning for mostly tea party candidates, women who were running for office and calling them her mama grizzlies. june 5, 2011, and other mother of five, conservative, congresswoman michele bachmann announced her intention to run for president of the united states. as for palin, bachmann's bid generated a lot of debate over gender roles and women in politics from all sides. given that both women were running in high-profile races, these cases divide an excellent entprovide an excelln lens through which public deliberations about conservative women, motherhood and politics can be examined.

so i was very eager after the first book that i wrote, which was about two conservative women's organizations and i wanted to stop and felt compelled to keep going. but i was eager to resources question about how you have conservative ideology, which promotes traditional gender roles, stereotypes, which i will get into, yet these organizations are promoting these mothers of five running for national office. so the research i am presenting today builds on my work in writing feminism. when i was presenting research and talking about the book afterwards, i got a lot of questions from people basically saying aren't those women hypocritical? they say women should stay home and be with her kids and yet there they are running for office. those of you who remember that was a question often posed to

phyllis -- she has children and she is out there politically engaged and so on. so it was a frequent question. people said these women are hypocrites. that's basically what people said, these women are hypocrites. if you stop at calling a group of people hypocrites and leave it at that, you lose out on a lot of information and understanding what role they actually play in politics. what i want to argue today is that -- i'm sorry there are valid reasons to say that potentially these women can be considered hypocrites, but there aren't tensions and contradictions and it is not as clear-cut. so let me explain. so some of the tensions, that conservatives are actually presented with because they do promote gender role conservativism among but they are also promoting mothers in politics. so let's start with the tensions

in the questions and the ideas about why is it that we would think it would be wrong for conservative women to promote people like palin and bachmann running for office. conservatives have promoted the privacy of stay-at-home motherhood based on theological beliefs and heterosexual families and about gender values, but the primacy of women as caretakers, social conservatives have long argued -- their roles as stay-at-home mothers. that is the first point that i sense that you should think it is odd to promote palin and bachmann. i'm going to give you two comments from women that run organizations or are active in conservative women's groups. they point to why we think conservative groups might actually be hypocritical and promoting palin and bachmann. the first is from a woman who

works for concerned women of america. women have to knowledge that they are blessed with children and it is important to give their needs top priority. another quote is from someone who has said that encouraging wives and mothers to do their own thing has left children to bear burdens of loneliness, depression and an empty house. latchkey children are crying out for the love of mom who subordinate to their own career ambitions and desire for material things to the well- being of their children. so these do show there is some validity in positing that there may be some hypocrisy here. another tension for conservatives is that come in terms of promoting mothers in elected office, republicans -- if you are looking at studies, they are less likely than democrats in promoting mothers

of young children for running for office. in states where there is a higher number of social conservatives, the lower number of women are in the state houses in so there is an inverse correlation and political life. conservative women's organizations have chastised feminists for promoting the notion that women can have it all. that is that they can be super moms. you may remember the bring home the bacon and fried up in a pan. they alleged that feminist earth mothers that participate in the workforce generate feelings of guilt and so on. promoting palin a mother of five or bachmann, and other mother of five a month and standing behind tea party mothers running for office, indeed, the promotion of these women appear to violate ideological and religious norms.

ok. on the other hand, there are some reasons to think that this makes perfect sense that conservative women are doing this. despite the prevailing gender norms, women have had a long history of politcal participation in conservative movement politics. she ran for congress and worked on barry goldwater's campaign and so on. conservative women's activism has included, for example, organizing against the women's suffrage amendment. they have been actively involved in challenging laws having to do with federally funded day care or family leave. they have been actively involved in the opposition for legal abortion, same-sex marriage. so despite the conservative gender roles, they are actively

involved in politics. secondly, when republicans do vote for women, they preferred to vote for mothers than women who do not have children. third, there are record number when in -- women running for office. the numbers are still pretty low. about 18% in congress, but only a quarter of them are republican women. but they are wanting to increase there will numbers. -- increase their numbers. in addition, conservative women's groups themselves to do this have founded a political action committees and organizations to raise money and train women to run for office. they are working to meet the goal of getting more republican women elected. finally, republicans are well aware there is a gender gap that favors -- generally, women favors democrats in presidential

elections. they know they need to target women voters and promote more women in politics. historically, conservatives have grappled between ideology, the role of mothers and women, and political reality when it comes to trying to promote women in the public sphere, including in the realm of professional politics. given these tensions, i ask the following questions. how do conservative women advocates -- and i actually looked at conservative women's organizations themselves in the first part. how do they negotiate ideological beliefs about conservatism and general roles with an interest in electing republican women, and in particularly wanting to promote palin and bachmann when they were running for office? actually having these organizations talk about palin and bachmann during their campaigns.

second, how do conservative woman leaders -- i interviewed a number of them. not only did i look at organizational documents, but i interviewed women leaders, some of whom overlap here. and i asked them how they negotiate tensions personally themselves. they are all paid representatives of organizations. how did their organizations talk about these tensions? and how might that affect discourse and policy outcomes? finally, i look at what this tells us about gender and politics more broadly, especially in light of the fact that there are an increasing number of women who want to run for office, or are running for office and want to get elected. when conservative women are talking about gender roles and paternalism, it has implications broadly for how we understand motherhood, politics, in a broad sense. i want to make it clear that we need to think broadly and not just try to think someone is hypocritical, but what it actually means when people think this in the public sphere. i will not go into much detail about the legal theories or

representation and so on. i'm happy to talk about it in the the q and a. i look at social and economic conservatives, and i'm happy to to find out later on. the organizations i study our national and represent a range of conservative women's organizations and women political actors. i specifically look at how they talk about palin and bachmann when they were running for office. and i try to tease out how it is they -- what language they used to account for the tension. and i find that basically what they do is they have transformed

the meaning of conservatism a little bit to basically take account for the fact that they are promoting others in office promoting mothers in office even though sometimes they say mothers should stay home. i look at their language. and i call that "framing." when i use the term framing, i'm really talking about language and ideas used to communicate values, organizational goals, and perspective. then i go on and i do interviews with the men who represent national organizations. i have also interviewed feminist woman. but for the talk today, i'm only talking about conservative interviews. and here, arguing about personal narratives and how they reflect the political actors understand mothers interest and provide insight into basically, how they themselves have negotiated these tensions. but also how other organizations are talking about them. and how these things should public discourse about motherhood, conservatism, and

gender in politics. it's a mouthful, but hopefully i'm making the argument in the long run. i will present the research into parts. first, the organizations on palin and bachmann. second, i will give you highlights of the interviews i did and talk about how they work together and how there are contradictions between the two. here are the organizations i've studied. the concerned women for america. the oldest organization is eagle forum. that was founded in 1972. all of these groups are not only national in scope, but i consider them to be women's organizations. what i mean is they are exclusively led by women and they make arguments that a are representing women. i think that is very important. you have now saying they represent women's interest and conservative groups saying they represent women's interest. these are the organizations i've studied. smart girl politics is more of a web-based organization, but there is a range. these are the groups that i talked to as far as how they talk about palin and bachmann.

the interviews are here. i will go back to the slide when i go over the interviews. but as you can see, there is a range here. this is the universe of conservative women. there are elite women, leaders of or representative of these organizations. and then i take these to the national coordinator for the tea party patriots, and so on. let me go back to the organizations rhetoric about palin and bachmann. basically, i found that they use two different frames. the first is called feminine toughness. those are indeed, barbie for president. i have them in my office and they are good conversation starters. i wanted to get a suit that matched, but it was nowhere to be found. the first frame that

organizations use is what i'm told is feminine toughness. a sickly, let's check on -- let's focus on the feminine first. not feminist, but feminine. from this perspective, palin is deemed to be full of grace and someone who exudes femininity. these are the things the organizations have said about her. she has been said to integrate political leadership with family response ability. the president of the claire luce booth policy institute tells us that palin holds her baby on stage because she wants to publicly embrace being a woman on stage in all the facets. she is coupled with her policy goals and proves to the independent women's forum that you don't have to hold the cultural prejudices of the left to be a woman. in an interview with the washington post, the president of the independent women's forum also summed it up this way.

she said this about palin. "she is feminine and she is fashionable, and that is ok now." which i'm happy to hear. in these ways, femininity is how she looks. that is why i put the barbie up here, because obviously it is partly about what you wear and your makeup. but it also is that she emphasizes the centrality of her husband and children and so on. bachmann is the feminine bachmann is the feminine reaction from conservative women. a cnn reporter was told, i actually think it is great. i think you can embrace your femininity in a way that you will look and still be a smart and intelligent woman. in addition to their style and persona, palin and bachmann are also consistently praised not just for being feminine, but also for running for office for the right reasons.

and that is, not to gain power or authority, but to help people. here, conservative women are also now offering what i say is a feminized account of the quest for national office. that is consistent with the traditional notions of mothering and gender roles. as an aside, feminists also have some version of this when they talk about the need for more women in office and the difference in what they bring to political office. but this is a very particular interpretation of the feminized account of leadership. karen agnes, who founded the network of in-line women, which i noted is a conservative network for college women, praised palin's life choices and goals. she says, palin chose to marry her high school sweetheart. in an acceptance speech, she said, we met in high school and two decades later, he is still my guy. she focused on raising her children and pursuing public office not to climb the political ladder, but to make

her community better for children. bachmann is also touted as a role model in general for this, but also as a role model for younger women, due to her feminine leadership roles. bachmann "stands up for her beliefs." it's not about power or title. call her crazy for speaking up, but younger conservative woman in really look up to her. here you have an accountability in leadership goal. there is also discourse that celebrates women and bachmann's toughness. on palin, it was argued that she is not the kind of person to give in to bullies. she is the kind of mother who protects her children to my -- something that those who hate her don't seem to understand.

if you recall, palin herself invoked this. if you have never seen her mama grizzly act, go onto youtube and google mama grizzly. it is a fascinating advertisement. it is really well done. palin herself used the mama grizzly image to precisely capture the reconciliation of femininity and toughness. she offers this sentiment. you thought pickles were tough, but you don't want to mess with mama grizzly. they have invoked a toughness themselves. as for bachmann, harry christophe said about her and also her conservative counterparts, you have to have a very strong backbone and be a conservative woman running for office. bachmann is also described by another organization is having the strength and tenacity to do what is necessary to lead this nation. here you have interesting coupling of traditional conceptualizations of femininity with masculinity am a suggesting that palin and bachmann can also

be ladies, but also counted on to run the country. i want to say here that these complex descriptions are necessary for most women who run for office, whether conservative or feminist. people prefer -- and if you do studies and surveys, people prefer women to be communal and warm and kind, and they expect men to be agenda, aggressive, and self-directed. but these latter characteristics are also what people expect of their leaders. what you have is eight it of a double bind for what women -- is a bit of a double bind for women running for office. you can watch all kinds of lives about hillary clinton when she ran for president about that being the case. it is summed up nicely this way.

trying to satisfy complex set of expectations is impossible. women are criticized for deviating from the norm and for appearing to be masculine. i think this feminine toughness is an interesting way for these organizations, conservative women's groups particularly, to navigate between cultural demands as well as keeping perceptions of these women in line with the view about gender roles. the femininity part reinforces the conservative view about the way women are supposed to behave and their values, and so on. the feminine toughness not only makes the candidate's more appealing to conservative men and women, but it also paves the way for palin and bachmann to be distinguished. they are distinguished from feminists. given that many more liberals shy away from supporting them because they are seen to conservatively, it is a way for them to position themselves to get support. let me give you examples.

palin exudes a can-do optimism because it is tough to be a woman leader. and there has been similar anti- feminist language in my favorite quote of the entire book that i'm working on. it is a little long, but bear with me. it gets good at the end. sarah palin's feminine appearance, charm, and leadership suggest the madeleine albright or janet reno. with her casual approach to public speaking and her down- home expressions, she makes harsh feminist diatribes m.d., meaning that come out of touch, and out of date. her savvy complex demeanor reflects herself as a wife, mother, and accomplished career woman. get it all in there.

her soft exterior is a contrast to her tough inner strength. palin simply lights up the room when she walks in. here is a way to talk about these organizations -- [laughter] -- i'm just reading the quote. it is really important for these organizations to do this. part of the mission is to represent women. there is this battle with feminist organizations to say, no, we represent women. it fosters one of their goals. conservative women also argue that palin and bachmann's bid for office represents what feminists have long for, which women's entrance into higher- level office. but it argues that it feminists

had really cared about women in office, they would have supported palin and bachmann. it is an interesting challenge for feminists, actually. i did some research on it. feminists had to say, we did not mean just women, but feminists. we had to say, no, we are not going to endorse sarah palin. and conservatives picked right up on this. these debates helped further the goals. invoking the feminine toughness frame to describe these woman captures the desire of conservative women's groups to both reinscribe traditional gender roles, while also supporting these liberated women for disrupting them. it also serves to make feminist look out of touch. and reasserts that feminists are not feminine. and these women are seen as super moms, which helps to promote traditional gender role values and also wanting more woman to be professional and politically active. i have termed this conservative supermom. as noted in the past,

conservative women have chastised feminists for allegedly promoting the notion that women can have it all, seamlessly balancing child- rearing, holding a job in the paid workforce, and enjoying intimate relations with their partner. it is not really accurate that feminists have promoted that, but nonetheless, that is the rhetoric that comes from conservative women's groups. despite the critiques of supermom, which i alluded to earlier, conservative groups actually apply to palin and findingud them for ways to

fit it all in and for framing what i'm calling the conservative supermom. they were praised for providing a model for how some women can manage motherhood and a professional career and appealing to women who want to have it all, including happily married to the love of their youth and bearing his children. and for a woman who believes that it is possible for a woman to hold down a full-time ceo job overseeing a multibillion-dollar budget -- here you see an embracing of the supermom. you have that, but what you also see is that they praise the alleged supermom talent that palin and bachmann have, but supermom has some caveats. they also have to abide by personal political beliefs that are essential to economic and social conservatism, which is why i call them conservative supermoms. i will talk a little bit about that. first, these organizations say that palin and bachmann yield to their families, especially their

husbands. it has been said about palin that she doesn't need feminist approval for her lifestyle. the only person's okay she needs for her double career is her husband, and he seems very happy with her. this doesn't mean, by the way, that women have no say or that couples don't negotiate with each other. but scholars have shown that conservative evangelicals, who are in important base for the republican party, adhere to the idea of male superiority in the family union. they talk here about the adherence to biblical submission, which also helps to solidify her social credentials. the meaning of this has been

debated even among women who say they adhere to it. but it essentially comes from a biblical passage that says, wives, submit yourselves unto your husband as unto the lord. bachmann's acknowledgment that she believes in submission generated a lot of public debate and scrutiny. it even got played out in the press pretty significantly. and it forced conservative women's groups to explain how it beshe can submit and also president of the u.s. it is important to note that biblical submission is about harmony and well-being within the home and the relationship between a husband and wife. it has nothing to do with leadership responsibilities, except that no one, even the president of the united states, should treat others with disrespect, or accept a subservient spirit from anyone or demand the total submission of another persons well. -- of another person's will. a woman who submits your husband -- to her husband

does not have a similar relationship with men at work. a christian woman or man and leadership must meet and fulfill the responsibilities for which they are accountable to god and for which they are serving in leadership capacity. basically, bachmann can fulfill gender theological roles, but this does not translate into her political self. that is how it is exciting by -- it is explained by the concerned women for america. it is central to the agenda of most social conservative groups. there was concern that mccain was not aggressive enough in antiabortion policies, so palin picked up on that when she was running as his running mate.

given that republican voters think republican women are more liberal, they are promoting their pro-life perspective and that helped physicians show that women can be very conservative when they run for office. hailing talk -- palin talked about her decision to air a -- bear a child with down syndrome as a way to appeal to social conservatives. finally, they hinted that their values fall in line with republican voters. after decades of being targeted sexist, conservatives in the gop base are understandably proud to have women making their case in support of limited government and free market. these woman obviously do appeal to their fellow audience, particularly conservative women. these organizations employ what i call a conservative supermom frame. the language also speaks to conservatives by highlighting

their beliefs about when -- women and the family, but it appeals to a broader base and range of people. let me give you the organizational interviews for a second. i'm only going to highlight some of the findings from here. some of this is still in the works. i want to connect a few of the comments i made earlier. basically, i interviewed these woman -- these women and these and how they talked about these values when representing these organizations. i can talk more about who these women actually are. let me go over the interview highlights. in the interest of time, i will do some of the preliminary findings. the first is, the woman that i interviewed indicated that the new conservative woman is not constrained by traditional

gender roles. when asked if it was contradictory for her and other conservative mothers to be workplace, conservative -- one conservative founder rejected the idea. she said to me, i think the press is wrong to start with. i don't think conservative women are pro-stay-at-home moms. we run the gamut, just as liberals do. there are plenty woman who want to have a family and a career as well. there is a misconception that we are stay-at-home moms and that is all we want to do. most of my friends within the organization feel the way i do. i find it offensive that people think we are all cookie- cutter's. why is it that there is this kind of public discourse, perhaps mid-from her perspective, that this is true.

she said that liberals perpetuated it. there is some debate about why there is this myth out there, but some of the conservative women are saying it is not accurate. there is a complaint and the leaders that conservatism has been transformed and more excepting of the mother's professional goals. conservative ideology and politics has to be understood in this new light of wanting to transform the understanding of mother's roles. this has to do with the organizations and the interviewees themselves and the promotion of palin and bachmann. in reference to their professional goals, conservative women counter with responses in the language of choice. i think it is a personal decision between you and your family and nobody else should be telling you that one makes you a stronger woman than another one. and when i pushed on the policy

solutions that might deal with the tensions of mothers in the workplace, mothers in professional politics, interviewees responded that solutions should be privatized and not come from government social programs. most conservative when opposed federally funded -- women and opposed federally funded daycare. one woman said, i am philosophically opposed to child care. i said, why is that? and she said to me, honestly, babies are delicious. they are cute and sweet and soft. i think that babies need their mamas and babies need their daddies. that is what i was raised with and that is what i believe in. i don't think i can stand to drop off my kids to the lowest bidder, even if it means saving the world. she had a very visual account of this. most of the conservative women, if you look at activism and is

groups that i study and so on, they are all opposed to federally funded childcare. they are all engaged in that activism, like against the family leave act and so on. but in contrast to the supermom image of palin and bachmann, the interviewees -- and i actually push them on it personally as opposed to reading organizational stuff -- they actually used more complex and nuanced language. to talk about how women manage conflicting goals, to sum it up, tea party leader don wildman said to me, whoever thought you could have it all, it's crap. another leader like and these -- like and directing these tensions to playing the harp. she said to me, someone gave me a great analogy. it's kind of like laying a heart playing a harp to make it work. other times you have to shift to another place and you have to

play these chords. a common complaint from conservatives was, you can have it all, but not at the same time. i would like to add that all of the feminists have said the same thing to me. there was one feminist who said to me that is actually true of men as well. that is something we may want to talk about later as well. but there is a more nuanced account of the supermom. organizational rhetoric has to produce one thing. when you push people on it personally, you'll get something slightly different and more nuanced. finally, in explaining why working mothers may experience difficulties, many of these conservative women leaders referenced gender differences. that is, they argued that it is within women's nature to multitask and to juggle. the first thing you've got to realize is that god knows he's what he's doing in sending babies to young woman and you're making a terrible mistake to think you can establish a career and then after you are 40 you decide you want to have a husband and kids. life doesn't work that way. you have a biological clock,

even though feminists have often denied it. and the trouble with feminist studies and what feminist professors are teaching is that women should plot her career without any thought for husband or children. the questions posed in this research, the main question posed here is how conservative woman in negotiate tensions between traditional gender norms and the desire for mothers in politics. i would argue it is too simplistic to say conservative women are reinforcing and promoting recently articulated notions of gender roles. but it is also too simplistic to say they are not. as palin and bachmann, for example, reflect on their careers, they are reflecting the ideological norms, but also transforming them. and they want to increase the number of women in the workforce and running for office. what can we make of this? from the perspective of conservative women, mothers can

be supermoms if their identities is tantamount to professional goals. running for office when you're the mother of five is acceptable, but best accomplish ed with your husband's blessing. and i want to note that in terms of constructing gender roles and maternal identities, the assertion that palin and bob and also need to be feminine and attentive to their families confront something feminists have lamented for some time. which is that for women who want to work outside the home, they have to be presented as exemplary mothers. the second point is that women must work things out personally with privatized solutions. here's the language of choice a clear emphasis on choice and individualism. dismisses the role of power, institutions, resources, and so on. and within this articulation of choice, there is very little challenge to the role of state

and economic policies, or structural factors. now of course, the language of choice and personal decision- making matches well with conservative ideology. it was no surprise for them to articulate this. but i want to argue that the important thing about it is that it translates into public policy goals about how women and mothers, and parents -- but you know, i talk to them mostly about motherhood. how they advocate for public policy. as i noted earlier, they oppose the family leave act, among other things. there is no support for government sponsored social programs that address work and family balance. except for things like tax breaks for businesses that offer flextime and so on. there's also very little discussion of class differences among men and women and equal parenting. with the increase of conservative conservative women

women running for office have , recognized and they did say to me there is a change in family dynamics and ultimately, gender role ideology. conservative women themselves are actually expanding ideas about what legitimate gender roles are for conservatives, not in ways that are identical to what feminist do. conservative women's groups -- conservative mothers are embraced if they fit within a particularized notion of femininity. this presents a new idea about motherhood that i think we need to pay attention to and it suggests that conservative actors are actually adapting to a changing environment. in the upcoming elections, we may see a subtle shift. and it might help to soften the image of the republican party. it has been shown to be much more masculinized, less friendly to women's interest, and so on. the way they talk about mothers in politics might affect the

republican party in that way. the first thing i want to say is that conservative politics cannot be fully understood without paying attention to the women active within it. this seems like a no-brainer, but if you look at the amount of research on conservative women, there is not a lot. with palin running for office, it started to bloom a little bit. but there has not been a lot of scholarship on that. and there is cultural significance. through an analysis of their activism, we gain a much fuller and nuanced understanding of the conservative movement politics. finally, i want to argue, maybe in a pollyannish way, there is an important message sent about the need to pay attention to women's rights and recognition of women's wide-ranging abilities.

now of course, i also want to add that conservative women do not gesture to but nonetheless, this being a feminist idea. feminists have clearly affected conservative goals about promoting women in politics. and these conservative woman so hardly promoted a woman's bid for vice president have validated the claim of feminists for a long time, that women belong in the public sphere. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. what we will do now is our respondent, deirdre english, will have a response and a bit of a conversation with ronnie schreiber. and for the last 15 minutes we

will open up to the floor for questions. christine trost will have a microphone and will be able to ask questions of the panel. >> thank you very much. i'm deirdre english. i cannot claim to the same level of neutrality and objectivity that professor schrieber brought to this work. i have debated phyllis schlafly in the past, and not entirely successfully. she was very good. and i have written critically about conservative women in the past. but i have also gone as a journalist with great interest to alaska, to sarah palin's hometown, with something in the spirit that you brought to your work, to try to understand her religion, her neighbors, and her background. and i really appreciate your scholarship, and i appreciate

the effort made to try to understand, to see to understand and then to be understood. i think it is a good principle. i appreciate the respect you brought for your subjects and your own open-mindedness and your pointing out their importance for social science as well as politics. i think you have established, if there was any doubt, that they are far from being mere mouthpieces for men. these are women who are speaking for themselves. they are passionately defending their beliefs, which are important to them. you remained an objective scholar in describing their thinking, and the changes in their thinking that you observed. and that may, indeed, lead to greater sympathy and understanding between the two tribes. but in commenting, i will,

however fire at you some of the contradictions that are, perhaps better meant for your subjects than for you, as you are not in a position to question their facts. today, you focus on a great irony that of all things, in retrospect, sarah palin and michele bachmann have become iconic figures of women who can do it all. in sarah palin's case, having five children, choosing to have a down's syndrome baby while she was governor of alaska, and becoming with her husband and her own parents, active grandparents, sheltering her pregnant unwed daughter, bristol, while running for vice president. palin can actually kill a moose, and she has an amazing ongoing presence as a media star. she may well in all fairness be

in the running for super women superwoman of the past decade. but wait. it's the conservative women's movement, as you pointed out, that has classically blamed feminism for promulgating the idea that women can do it all. who is selling the idea now? what could phyllis schlafly have to say to sarah palin, since schlafly blames women's studies professors for failing to teach mothers to prioritize staying home over working? let me comment on this notion right away. and let's not just let it escape us as a sign of progress. it is in -- it is a mistaken stereotype of what feminism stands for, or ever has. from the very beginning, feminists saw that women were being swept into the modern workplace by the demands of a

modern capitalist economy. but first, women were restricted to the pink collar ghetto -- saleswomen, secretaries, nurses. and it was feminists who insisted that women can do professional work and hold authority. they broke open the law schools, the employment ads, the medical schools, and not to ignore the journalism schools, and many other institutions. they clearly saw from the beginning that women would not be able to do it all, and they asked society to provide for child care, family leave, flex time, and all services that other advanced capitalist countries do offer. for another thing, they asked men to become more active in

raising their children. today, cities show that women are better fathers -- studies show that when men are better fathers, families are much happier. and working mothers have smaller families today and are putting in more time nurturing and educating each tile than ever before in history, even compared to full-time housewives of only a few decades ago. so the conservative women who say that it is feminists who have tried to get women to do it all without support have got their facts wrong. feminists asked for social support. they asked for men's support. they did not get everything that they asked for, and that is the status quo today. a second irony, perhaps from a feminist point of view, is that had sarah palin and michele bachmann actually succeeded in achieving positions of power, they would have furthered

legislation that then would have denied women the resources to be able to do it all themselves. conservatives are not being terribly logical when a criminal criticized -- when they criticize feminists for trying to achieve higher office. it is an easy charge to dismiss. why would we support women who would further policies that would demand that women who could not do it all themselves would not be given support, women who would oppose government or workplace accommodations for women who are not in such privileged positions with regard to their family resources? when you talk about this -- and i think you did raise this point, professor schreiber -- there is a need for historical and economic perspective. this debate has been with us throughout american history.

it is not new. in the case of women's rights, there were liberal women who agitated for the vote at the time of the american revolution, just as there have been conservatives who oppose the women's vote even into the 20th century. this is a very old debate that we have been conducting. and it has held us stymied in so many ways. i want to talk about this more when we get into the question- and-answer time frame, this gridlock of how long we have to remain in this world without making a lot of progress. -- in this quarell without making a lot of progress. how long have we been divided? the premodern era was governed by systems that were patriarchal.

it wasn't feminism, but capitalism that overthrew patriarchy, disrupting father dominated productive households and sweeping man and later women into paid labor. we are still in a transition away from patriarchy and into a world of rapid change that conservatives cannot halt any more than liberals can. the political question is, how can we find ways of modern life that offer the most benefit to all americans of all classes and races? and in all parts of the country. this is where i'm often puzzled by conservative rhetoric on the concept of privacy and choice. the state does not force the woman to divorce, to use contraception, to be a lesbian, or to have an abortion, but leaves this to her individual conscience where the laws allow.

why then do conservatives believe that the state should have a right to force her not to marry a woman, not to use contraception, not to have a legal regulated abortion? i ask conservatives, why not keep government out of our private lives and leave it to a woman's religion, moral beliefs, and conscience? conservatives seek to restrict the choices of nonconservative women, which is a style that reaches back to patriarchal attitudes rather than to current ideals of personal freedom and self responsibility. this is one place where i perceive a much bigger contradiction in conservative thinking than whether or not a woman should wear lipstick. one might ask -- is this merely a squabble? this american history long argument, is this merely a squabble among women that men can ignore? i don't think so.

we are actually talking about how to organize our civilization. who has children and how many, the way the sexes relate, whether or not heterosexuality should be the only norm, who will get an education, who will be a leader, whether talented people can rise in a meritocracy without being disqualified by gender, who will care for the sick and the elderly, who will be financially supported -- when and how? these are such fundamental issues that we are talking about, that they get to the core of how we live as americans and what the american dream really is. they're not merely women's issues, but matters that touch on all of our lives. and men can and do care about these issues. in fact, i would venture to say that this is really not a split between conservative women

versus feminist women, but rather between conservatives and liberals, generally. after all, today more than ever, most liberal men agree with liberal women on these issues, and conservative men and women agree with each other. i think it is interesting to note that in the early feminist movement, many feminists did construct this battle as one of women against men, women generally being oppressed by men generally. but perhaps feminists have changed, much as you think that conservative women have changed in a way that we have not always noticed. because today, you will find much more that feminists see this not as a battle among women, or as between women and men, but really a battle between liberals, liberal men and women together, versus conservatives, men and women together.

and in some sense, it is really a battle about holding onto the past, as conservatives will also -- will often put it themselves, versus a new way in the future, which is how liberals will often construct what say they are they say they are doing. so i think you have raised the important question of common ground. and you have shown that though defending conservative ideas, the women you have studied have also been actively expanding roles for women. this is a huge paradox. and you have argued that it leads them to some common ground with liberals. indeed, i think we can propose a superwoman of our own to enter

that common ground. i cannot think of a better one than nancy pelosi. she is a liberal feminist superwoman, who was a devout -- who is a devout catholic, in a long-term marriage, has raised a large family. she, like sarah palin, also enjoys showing off her children and grandkids on the public stage, as if to say that a woman can have it all, perhaps in different stages. yet ideologically, nancy pelosi does not expect a single working class woman to provide for all of her own needs. she supports a variety of life options for all women and trust them to make individual decisions without big daddy government telling them what they can and cannot do. government in her hands is conceived of as a resource and a

support for women and children, not a disciplinarian. if we expect women who do not have money or perfectly enabling families to be in the workforce, we must do this, provide this for them, or we are sacrificing the welfare of their children. nancy pelosi is, perhaps from the liberal side, an example of what you have described, feminine toughness. she is feminine. and sure, she is tough. you have to be to be in politics. but not ideologically conservative in her consumption -- in her conception of government. conservatives do not have a lock on those traits. one thing nancy pelosi would never do in contrast to those women you promote it is attacked janet reno, and others. she would never criticize a woman in public office for her looks. if that is what conservatives propose, i will have to say, no

thank you. so let's continue, as you have pioneered, to learn about the principles that conservative women stand for and how they are evolving. let's perhaps look more at how liberal or feminist ideas have also evolved and changed. and perhaps, we are letting some of that slip out of view. and let's expand the arena of conversation, by all means. only if we talk to each other can we correct stereotypes and incorrect ideas we have about each other. misunderstandings only make matters worse. let's continue to eliminate them, and let's try to get to what the real issues are. thank you. [applause]

>> now i'm sure people have many questions. i would like to open the floor to those questions. let me begin by asking you a but little bit about how conservative women felt -- you said that they felt they were stereotyped by feminist women. what did they feel were the worst stereotypes that feminists had about them? >> essentially, that they only focused on being a stay-at-home mother and that they had no other goals or desires to be actively involved in politics. whereas feminists, basically, i think, ignored their contributions to politics. that was the biggest concern

they had with feminists, in terms of how feminists perceive them. they had a lot of concerns about feminists, sort of broadly speaking. as i noted, they articulate that feminists have promoted ideologies that are kind of premised on man hating and are anti-feminine, and so on so forth -- and so on. but mostly feminists have undervalued their contributions to politics. >> would you be able to comment at all about what you felt their stereotypes of feminists were? >> sure. this is where i thought it was wonderful to do this as a researcher. it is also very frustrating to do this as a researcher. the stereos that come out -- i'm just recording and saying yes and so on, but i really want to engage in a dialogue. and say, well, i have to say that -- i want to push them on it and say, i'm a feminist and i know women who are feminists and they don't fit that stereotype. let's talk about why we have the stereotypes and so on. i will give an example.

when i interviewed phyllis schlafly, she said to me, feminists are opposed to marriage and children. i am a married feminist with children. i have heard her say this before. she has written this. i wanted to push her on this. i said, what would you say to a woman who is married, like in -- like kim gandy, who runs the national organization for women who i also interviewed for my book. she has children. what would you say to her? what she said was, what i meant to say was that feminist promote policies that are anti-family. but basically those were the stereotypes, that feminists are anti-children, anti-marriage, and so on. >> is there and institute for the study of liberal feminist women? >> i did a lot of research. i came to this project because actually, my original spark for this idea was in college.

it was toward the end i was in of the e.r.a. debates. i was in pennsylvania. it was one of the state that was going down. there was a big debate about it. for a women's studies class, i interviewed a woman from stop e.r.a.. completelythen i was fascinated with women who would oppose equal rights amendment. then when i was in graduate school, i had a major field of study about women in politics. and it really was about feminists and feminism in politics, generally speaking. obviously there are some exceptions. there was a lot of attention to diversity among women, but not a lot of attention to ideological diversity among women. so that is what brought me to there is a lot of scholarship on . -- a lot of scholarship out there on liberal feminism, but not on conservative women. >> what about conservative woman in -- conservative women in terms of class. did you look at that?

>> i did not for this so far. there are surveys. i will eventually incorporate that into my research. but for now, certainly, the women that i interviewed and the organizations that i'm studying are women from upper income or higher class. i don't like that term. upper income families, generally speaking. there is not a lot of discussion about last diversity among these -- about class diversity among these women. the lack of support for things like federally funded childcare speak to that as well. >> which might be to them equated with paying more taxes. >> absolutely. they believe that -- it is not like we should ignore the problems. but they do believe that the best approach is to have flex time in the workplace, maybe provide tax incentives to businesses to offer these kinds of things. but it should never be government mandated. >> you offered to say a little bit more about the two different strains of conservativism and

-- in the two different organizations. the independent women's forum represents one strain of conservativism and the conservative women of america is quite different. would you say a little bit more about the differences between conservative women? >> yes, absolutely. the independent women's forum was founded by a woman who originally founded a group called women for judge thomas. after they were successful, they decided to found an -- two found an organization. they do not take a position on abortion or same-sex marriage. they really focus on what they consider to be economic policies, government regulation of businesses, and so on. they talk about how those policies either affect women or women's perspectives on them. concerned women for america is what i would call a socially conservative group. they mostly deal with issues having to do with abortion and issues of "morality." same-sex marriage, pornography, and so on.

there is always some overlap and historically there has been some great work on this by sarah dunn and others, about the way the conservative politics have managed to fuse the two. they might the encountering some troubles now. they do not always work together, but some of these groups managed to put out coherent messages, even though the independent women's forum does not deal with issues like abortion. >> what happens to a conservative woman who really believes in individual rights and perhaps wants very limited government, but also really believes in abortion rights? there are conservatives and republican women who believe that. >> i interviewed several of them. >> are they without an organization? >> i think, without power, perhaps. you hear this now from some of the more moderate republican woman in office.

>> i raise that question as a contradiction that i see. there is a contradiction between wanting less government, yet more government restrictions on personal decisions. and on private life. that does seem like a big contradiction. it is easy for me to imagine a conservative woman who would make that decision to resolve that contradiction in favor of freedom, individual rights, and privacy. >> i think that is true, and i think they feel like for now the republican party is welcoming enough, in terms of economic policies and so on, and i'll be -- and on the abortion part they are holding their nose. and there are pro-choice republican women in office. those are the women who are growing more frustrated with the emphasis on republican party antiabortion policy. but i think it is not clean. there are certain i agree with you that contradictions, but they don't believe the democratic party

represents the things they are most concerned with. yes, they are as pro-choice and so on, but in terms of what the government should be doing economically, they still feel more comfortable in the republican party and that is what they choose to focus on. >> i want to ask you one very fundamental question, which is, is there a really any benefit to finding more common ground? we have been talking as though there is. and on some level, there seems to be an idea that needs no defense, but would it make it a difference clinically to find more common ground? -- would make a difference politically to find more common ground? >> i think there are some places where it would. the one area that i think women should work together and cross ideological lines is in media sexism. there is no reason there needs to be a divide among women ideologically about how media, particularly media coverage of

women running for office or in office, there is no reason there needs to be an ideological divide in terms of assessing or evaluating that. there is a group that has formed recently called "name it, change it" and they are coming out everywhere. and they have come out, and they are calling it out on everyone. the national organization for women critique "newsweek," and they were talking about michele bachmann, calling her the queen of rage, and it was a very unflattering photograph, so i think that is really an area that does not make any sense to me, why you cannot have women working together to say this is problematic. you are hindering women in politics because of that, so that would be one area. >> this is a subject for another conversation, but i would love to understand more how much the mainstream media is guilty of having promulgated some of these stereotypes in the first place. >> which ones?

>> what feminists have about conservatives and what conservatives have about feminists. >> it is in terms of who the media chooses to speak and whether or not -- there certainly is more, if you look at major news networks and the one, i think it is changing slightly, but conservative women have done a very good job of getting themselves on television and representing conservatives, because it is a novelty at this point. just in terms of saying, we need more women in elected office, now this becomes more challenging, because like i said earlier, there are women, and then there are ideological divides among them. they do run into some challenges, where they are promoting women, where if they are conservative, the women may be feminists or vice versa, so it does present some challenges about substantive

representation, as political versus descriptive scientists may want to do with, and that you may be a woman, but you may not be acting in my interest. >> thank you very much. let's open it up to questions that people are here to ask. -- are eager to ask. >> in the conservative view, feminist women not supporting feminist candidates, did you ask them if they support liberal women candidates, because they are women? >> absolutely. >> and what was their response? >> this is changing, and this is one of the things i have talked about, but it has never been an explicit goal of conservative women's group to get women in elected positions of power until recently, which really started with sarah palin, but it has been a goal of feminist organizations, and i know you were saying that they would not support palin, and i think that is true, but it does require them to be more specific in

terms of talking what they care about about in promoting women and electing women in office, so they do not see it as contradictory. it has never been a stated goal for them to get more women in elected office, and so it really was not a problem for them. it is just a question. >> what about ethnic diversity? >> right. again, i will not -- to state that organizations and the women that i work with and study, you do not get a ton of diversity. there is some diversity among my interviewees, more age diversity than anything else. isave phyllis schlafly who 89, and i have also interviewed some college women activist to get some perspective, so it was interesting for me to get some perspective there. there is some ethnic and racial

diversity, but not a lot. what i am calling the elite level, in terms of surveys, people who identify as conservative, or so on, there is a bit more difference there. >> so the feminine toughness frame that you're talking about is not, the feminine part of it is not new at all, because we go back into the 1900s, and people were using their femininity or their roles as mothers to support their political stances, because we have this view that men do not have, and that is held in politics. we are for peace, because we know about the men and children, and when women for peace was an huac inlled before congress, they brought their children and, and they are very interested to show that they were traditionally feminine, so it is not new.

it is like these women are 100 years behind the times, and they are not offering something that is strikingly new to politics, so that rings me to my question, and your claiming that this has cultural significance and is transforming conservative values. i do not see how they are contributing to the conservative or transforming, really, the conservative agenda in the way that some people may point you in the democratic party, so i am -- may point to the women actually interested in the impact of these women in the party at large. >> briefly, i do not know that these women, that it is new or they are necessarily behind the that times, per se. it is just a way for them, it is just what they did. you are right about the internal list policies and that was both sides. it is not really you for conservative women either. it is -- it is not really new for just the way they have been doing it for women in an office. in terms of shifting or having an impact on the republican party, i think that just the more women who are -- studies --

currently, republican women do not fare well when they do in -- when they run in primaries, in part because people think they are too liberal, though there is an idea that some may be more feminist, so from the perspective of the republican party, the more conservative women you have out there running for office and making these claims, you may help republican women run for office, because it it will shift the idea that you do not have to be a man to be a conservative, which helps the republican party. i think that is incredibly important for them, and the other thing is there is a gender gap, and the gender gap i am talking about is that women as a whole, and it is not just gender, race is an important factor. preferred democrat candidates, particularly in the elections, and to the extent you can get more women running for office and more conservative women out there and being lyrically active, i think you may have some impact on that, a little bit, and, again, this is from the perspective of the party.

the final piece of this is part of the reason it is a relatively low number of republican women in office is the republican party has not done a particularly good job of recruiting and training and promoting republican women for office, so the more the leaders say this is a problem, i think that would have impact on the way the republican party deals with candidates. >> well, thank you all for coming. thank you, especially, professor schreiber, for your comments. >> thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >

weekend's newsmakers our guest is michael needham. the group was founded in 2010 and made defunding the health care law its first key issue. we will hear what the group has planned for 2014 as well as mr. needham's own thoughts regarding divisions within the republican party. here's a preview. 72% of americans do not like the republican party. i am one of those right now. the gop needs to find it sold companies to find out who it stands for. when most americans look at washington d.c. they see a game and they see or 10 food fights. they're making -- about making sure that well connected people

have spending and regulations written in their favor but if your small business person our entrepreneur or somebody wants to go to work and home sure family you don't have a voice in washington. >> is that part of the game? and games go together. you're very much a part of the process scoring numbers. at least a lot of republicans say that stirring things up within the party in ways that are not constructive. >> we asked off questions of members of congress. we have opinions on pieces of legislation that go forward. we thought it was a bad deal when paul ryan ryan and patty murray cut a deal to raise spending and raise taxes. we put out our argument for that and we told constituents about it. >> you can watch more of the interview with michael needham tomorrow on newsmakers at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. eastern here on c-span.

>> turning out to congress and what to expect next week when lawmakers return from their winter break, the senate is scheduled to begin the week considering a three-month extension of long-term unemployment insurance which ended last month. that will be the first item on the agenda when the chamber gavels back in monday at 2 p.m. eastern. also scheduled, a final vote on the nomination of janet yellen to be the next chairman of the federal reserve, scheduled for 5:30. the house returns at 2:30 eastern. no other businesses scheduled that day. later that week members will likely vote on two bills related to the health care law. one to monitor its implementation to weekly reports and another to protect her son information on the healthcare.gov website. as always, you can watch live coverage of the house on c-span, the senate on c-span two. >> bob cusack is managing editor of "the hill." the senate returns monday for

procedural vote on unemployment insurance. who is sponsoring this bill, how long is extension and what is the likelihood it will get past? >> dean heller of the bipartisan bill as well as jack lee a democrat from rod island -- from rhode island brought the forces together. does it have the votes to pass? there hasn't been any additional republican support that is come out just yet. harry reid strongly supports this and is hoping to put pressure on the republican-led house to pass this. pretty first test to get the votes. democrats are going to need at least a handful of republican votes. it remains to be seen if he will get those votes. how to the recent rule changes under the so-called nuclear option affect this vote?

does have the votes. before they went on break there was a procedural vote on her and she got 59 votes and that has cleared the way for this final vote. that is where the nuclear option played into effect. 60ically she didn't need the , but she needed a majority. she got 59 votes and on a procedural motion she is expected to pass. in committee there's only one democrat, joe manchin who voted no. there were republicans and voted for him committee. we may see a mixture of votes here. most democrats are going to support her and there will be some republicans that bakker. >> that houses back next week with at least one vote on health care law. houses for different from others that house has taken on health care? >> it is a new year and they're fighting over the same thing. this is different because it is not an obamacare repeal bill that we have seen dozens of times from house republicans. this bill would mandate that the federal government tell those

data has been breached or dies been some problem with the personal information who signed up for the affordable care act. the obama administration has said that is no one. security or private information has been breached. there are experts who say that the security of the site is not strong. very outspoken on this has been mike rogers, republican from michigan. >> the house is also gaining a new member and one is officially leaving. talk with us about that. bradley byrne will be replacing jo bonner who steps aside. special election. electi be watt's last day will january 6. he will join the fha housing

agency. that was a nomination that really needed the nuclear option to happen because what did not have the votes from republicans to clear. after the nuclear option was deployed he was confirmed by the senate. there'll be a special election for his race once after he steps down. we're not sure when that special election will happen just yet. >> by the scenes house and senate lawmakers are working on an omnibus bill to keep the government working after january 15 after that continuing resolution expires. what is the status of that? quickstep and working over the holidays, republicans and democrats, to put in language that will keep funding the government. they're facing a january 15 deadline. the spending level is just over a trillion dollars. not have to pass an appropriations bill that creates enough favor. they're been working behind the scenes to craft the language

that will fund the government in a massive omnibus. of course i will be a question of when they come out with that bill. szeto the votes to pass. it should because of the ryan- murray budget deal. but we will see. >> anything us we should look at as the second section -- session is getting underway? concerned the writer that speaker john boehner is going to move some type of immigration bill or that remains the scene but he did hire a former john mccain eight and proponents of immigration reform like that. of course we are in an election year so both parties have gone into campaign mode. we'll see more of that as a campaign moves on. thanks for joining us. >> thank you.

>> answering the question, what is the most important issue congress should address this year? -- with a 5-7int minute video. the grand prize is $5,000. are accepted until january 20. >> in his weekly radio address, president obama urged congress to extend employment insurance for more than one million americans who are without jobs. mississippi congressman gregg gives theused -- republican address. >> high, everybody, and happy new year. this is a time only look ahead to all the possibilities and opportunities of the year to come. when we resolve to better ourselves and to better our relationships with one another. today i want to talk about one place that washington should start. a place where we can make a real

and powerful difference in the lives of many of our fellow americans right now. just a few days after christmas, more than one million of our fellow americans lost a vital economic lifeline. the temporary insurance that helps folks make ends meet while they look for a job. republicans in congress went home for the holidays and let that lifeline expire. for many of their constituents are unemployed, through no fault of their own, that decision will leave them with no income at all. we make this promise to one another because it makes a difference to a mother who needs help feeding her kids while she is looking for work. it makes a difference to your father who needs help thing the rent while learning the skills to get a new and better job. ies that security is cruel. we are a better country than that. with theme faith until they have started that new job. what is more, it slows down the economy for all of us. if folks can't pay their bills

or buy the basic cycling clothes, local businesses take a hit and hire fewer workers. that is why the independent congressional budget office says that unless congress restores this insurance, we will feel a drag on economic growth this year. after our businesses created more than 2 million new jobs last year, it is a self- inflicted wound we don't need. when congress comes back to work this week, the first-order business should be making this right. right now, a bipartisan group in congress is working on a three-month extension of unemployment insurance. if they pass it, i will sign it. or decades, republicans and democrats put partisanship and ideology aside to offer some security for job seekers him even when the unemployment rate was lower than it is today. instead of punishing families who can least afford it, republicans should make it their new year's resolution to do the right thing and restore this file economic security for their constituents right now. after all, our focus as a country this year should not be

on trekking our economy but growing it. not narrowing opportunity but expanding it. not your jobs but doing everything we can to help our businesses create more of the good jobs that a growing middle class requires. resolutionnew year's to do everything i can every single day to help make 2014 a year in which more of our citizens can earn their own piece of the american dream. working andears of sacrificing to recover and rebuild from crisis, we have it within our power right now to move this country forward. it is entirely up to us and i'm optimistic for the year that lies ahead. thanks and have a great weekend. >> good morning and happy new year from the capital. kids are always saying something is not fair, but sometimes they have a point. did you know that today in america, only four percent of all federal funding for cancer research goes to childhood cancer? that's right, four percent for all pediatric cancers combined.

this does not just set us back in the race for cutting-edge cures and treatments, it places a ceiling on a child's ability to overcome obstacles and do great things. i am sure this issue hits home for many of you. it certainly does for all our families. livingston our oldest was four when he was diagnosed with fragile leg syndrome, a disorder that is often misdiagnosed as autism. today he is making his way through college in a program for students with intellectual disabilities. any families are not as fortunate. they are out there waiting for hope and answers that often never come. can't fix everything, but that doesn't mean we should accept things as they are. after all, don't we teach our kids never to settle for less? that is why i was proud to introduce hr 2019, the gabriela miller, kids first research act. this bipartisan legislation directs much-needed research to pediatric research at the

national institutes of health. we do this using taxpayer dollars currently set aside for political party conventions. instead of funding these once every four years, we will make it a daily priority to explore the clinical advancements. not only for childhood cancer but for all pediatric conditions come even the most rare of diseases. passed hr the house 2019 with strong support from both sides of the aisle. now it is the senate's turn to step up so we can send this bill to the president's desk. the good news is, these same senate leaders have already voted to end the taxpayer subsidy for party conventions. here's a way to cut this unnecessary spending and put it towards building a better future for our kids. peter welch, my democratic cosponsor for this bill, had it right when he asked -- can we just put the battle axes down for a while and take a step

forward? i know we can. if we do, it just might inspire us to come together and do with the american people sent us here ,o do, jobs, health care energy, education and innovation are all areas in which the house has started work that washington needs to finish this year. but first, we need your help to get this done. don't take it from me, gabriella miller, this bill's namesake was something special she was nine when she found that she had a brain tumor the size of a walnut . she was 10 when brain cancer took her life. in that time, gabriella never at a loss for words or wisdom, became the leader of this movement. she was awfully good at it. if i go she said, if i lose my want all'm going to the people to carry on the war. and we're going to win this war. join us in urging our senators to put kids first and pass this

bill. season of sweeping resolutions, here's a chance to show how one small change can make a big difference. thank you for listening. >> on the next "washington we begin with and a gallant of moveon.org followed by andrew ross of club for growth. then a look at the war on poverty, 50 years after president lyndon johnson first announced the initiative. former congressman james jones joins us. we will take your phone calls, e-mails and tweets beginning live at 7 a.m. eastern on c- span. >> c-span, we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in

the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. now, you can watch us in hd. >> next, congresswoman jackie spear and former congresswoman jane harman taking part in a discussion focused on women and their attempts to pursue second careers. this is from politicos women rule series. it is about 30 minutes. >> good morning, i am rachel olkin. i'm here with an incredibly diverse group of women who have reinvented themselves and their careers

through their tenacity and perseverance. rohini dey he has a masters in economics and a doctorate in management science. she has a lucrative career as a consultant with world bank and mckenzie to pursue a passion for ,ndian cuisine and food starting a restaurant. she is now a burgeoning restaurant tour and philanthropist. a restaurant in chicago and manhattan and is an avid supporter of women in the food industry.