Telling Political Lives The Rhetorical Autobiographies of Women Leaders in the United States

This book investigates the autobiographical writings of Barbara Jordan, Patricia Schroeder, Geraldine Ferraro, Elizabeth Dole, Wilma Mankiller, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Christine Todd Whitman. These eight women represent the diversity that permeates the cultural backgrounds, life adventures, and ideologies women bring to the political table. From differences in race, class, and geographic location to variations in personal and family experiences, religious beliefs, and political ideology, these women illustrate many of the divergent standpoints from which women craft their lives in the United States. Each chapter focuses on the autobiographical text as political discourse and, therefore, as an appropriate site for the rhetorical construction of a personal and civic self, situated within local and national political communities.