Media Round Up: Week of October 11th

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

The Irony at the Heart of the Amy Coney Barrett Fight

Emma Green, The Atlantic 

Emma Green discusses Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and the Republican Party’s fight to prove her as a champion for women. “Republicans have a strong interest in selling their Supreme Court nominee and their party as true advocates for women. President Donald Trump consistently trails Joe Biden among female voters, falling anywhere from nine to 31 percentage points behind the former vice president in national polls.”

You can read the full article here.

Why Republican women face a bleaker picture in the battle for representation in Congress

Deena Zaru, ABC News

Deena Zaru discusses whether the new high of diversity in  Congress should be attributed to successes in the Democratic Party, including a number of historic firsts for Democratic women of color. “For Republican women, the outcome was dismal. The GOP entered 2019 with eight female senators — an improvement, but far short of the 17 on the Democratic side. And in the House, out of 197 Republicans, a mere 13 were women, compared to 23 during the last cycle.”

You can read the full article here.

Why ‘Supermom’ Gets Star Billing on Résumés for Public Office

Claire Cain Miller and Alisha Haridasani Gupta, The New York Times 

This article delves into the “supermom” narrative that is often used to categorize mothers in the political spotlight.  The piece focuses on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and the tightrope she and other women have to face as mothers. “For American women in public office, being a mother has become a powerful but tricky credential. A woman who is professionally successful and ambitious is often seen as threatening or off-putting, researchers have found in multiple surveys of voters, but being a mother tempers that. It makes women seem warm and relatable — and suggests they can relate to voters’ lives, too. Yet Americans are also ambivalent about mothers who work, forcing women to negotiate an obstacle course of perceptions and expectations.”

You can read the full article here.

Across the country, Democratic enthusiasm is propelling an enormous wave of early voting

Amy Gardner and Elise Viebeck, The Washington Post

Voting is much different this year, as Amy Gardner and Elisa Viebeck discuss in this article. “With less than three weeks to go before Nov. 3, roughly 15 million Americans have already voted in the fall election, reflecting an extraordinary level of participation despite barriers erected by the coronavirus pandemic — and setting a trajectory that could result in the majority of voters casting ballots before Election Day for the first time in U.S. history.”

You can read the full article here.

What’s at Stake for Immigration in the 2020 Election

Bianca Rodriguez, Marie Claire

The country is more divided than ever and the November election may be influential in deciding the fate of immigrants. This article discusses what is at stake. “This country is great because of its diversity—but in the November 2020 election between President Donald Trump and Mike Pence and Vice President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, that diversity is being threatened more than ever.”

You can read the full article here.

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