Telling Political Lives

Brenda DeVore Marshall is professor of theatre and communication arts at Linfield College in Oregon. Molly A. Mayhead is professor of speech communication at Western Oregon University.

• Chapter 1 Table of ContentsChapter 2 ForewordChapter 3 AcknowledgmentsChapter 4 IntroductionChapter 5 1. Women's Autobiography as Political DiscourseChapter 6 2. Getting from There to Here: Political Rhetoric and African American Orality inBarbara Jordan: A Self PortraitChapter 7 3. From Housework to House Work: The Political Autobiographies of Patricia SchroederChapter 8 4. The "Feisty" Feminist from Queens: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of the Autobiographies of Geraldine FerraroChapter 9 5. Just Like "Azaleas in the Spring": Elizabeth Dole as a Daughter of the SouthChapter 10 6. All Our Relations: Wilma Mankiller's Rhetoric of Feminist Ecology and Indian SovereigntyChapter 11 7. The Personal is Political: Negotiating Publicity and Privacy in Hillary Rodham Clinton'sLiving HistoryChapter 12 8. Madeleine Albright and the Rhetoric ofMadame SecretaryChapter 13 9. Finding the Sensible Center: Christine Todd Whitman'sIt's My Party Too as Activist AutobiographyChapter 14 ConclusionChapter 15 BibliographyChapter 16 IndexChapter 17 About the Contributors

Do high powered political women write about their lives differently? Of course, but as this book shows, the common threads are remarkable. Each life story challenges artificial distinctions between the personal and the public. Each autobiography illustrates the ways in which a woman’s standpoint—her distinctive angle of vision as female, ethnic—influences the ways in which she understands her life and the political world. These women are role models, and their life stories rehearse the struggles and triumphs of ambitious and talented women.