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Based on data from a national survey, the authors find that women, even in the highest tiers of professional accomplishment, are substantially less likely than men to demonstrate ambition to seek elective office. Women are less likely than men to be recruited to run for office. They are less likely than men to think they are qualified to run for office. And they are less likely than men to express a willingness to run for office in the future. This gender gap in political ambition persists across generations and over time.

How did these two causes, so long allied, come to this? Based on extensive research, Fighting Chance is a story of how idealists descended to racist betrayal and desperate failure.

Grounded in the rich history of Chicago politics, For the Freedom of Her Race tells a wide-ranging story about black women's involvement in southern, midwestern, and national politics.

Newly discovered correspondence and rich personal interviews with her female associates illuminate the fascinating life of this important Kentucky activist.

America is ranked behind eighty-two other countries in terms of females elected to legislative office. The author reveals why the United States differs from comparable democracies that routinely elect far more women to their national governing bodies and chief executive positions. Most other democracies, she demonstrates, view women as more suited to govern because their governments have taken on maternal roles through social welfare provisions, gender quotas, or the continuance of symbolic hereditary monarchies. The United States has not adopted such policies, and until it does, American women run for office with a troubling disadvantage.