Michele L. Swers, associate professor of government at Georgetown University, will give the keynote address for the Conference on Women, Gender and Conservative Parties in the 21st Century.
Her lecture, “Women in the Club: Democratic Women, Republican Women and the Politics of Women’s Issues,” will be given Thursday, Oct. 9, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Tinkham Veale University Center, Senior Classroom. A question-and-answer session will follow the free and open lecture.
Swers is an expert on Congress, Congressional elections, and women and politics. Her most recent book, Women in the Club: Gender and Policy Making in the Senate (University of Chicago Press 2013), examines the impact of gender on Senators’ policy activities in the areas of women’s issues, national security and judicial nominations. The book focuses on party differences to demonstrate how party reputations for issue ownership interact with perceptions of women’s policy expertise to create opportunities and obstacles for women Senators. She goes on to analyze women’s activities as members of partisan teams, leveraging their gender to promote party messages to groups of women voters and to advance their own policy goals.
The conference is sponsored by the Case Western Reserve University McBride Lecture Fund, the Kathryn Peacock Eaken Memorial Fund, The Flora Stone Mather Center for Women and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.