Living a political life

Description

Madeleine Kunin - First Woman Governor of Vermont, fourth woman governor in the country's history. A memoir that will fascinate everyone interested in the political life. It will inspire and delight women who aspire to civic leadership. Kunin lets us see how she gradually acquired her political education through "ordinary" activities: organizing a busy household, covering local school-board and selectmen's meetings for the Burlington Free Press, and - herself a young doctor's wife - forming a group of her peers to challenge the AMA on an issue of medical care for the elderly. She recalls her first political steps and the ambivalence she experienced when she had to ask her hardworking husband to cope with the dinner dishes and look after four children so that she could campaign. She tells how she felt when she lost that first bid for office - and shares her exhilaration when soon thereafter she made a successful run for a seat in the Vermont legislature . From the moment of her maiden speech (her subject was the Equal Rights Amendment), we see her struggling with almost unexpected feelings of insecurity. We see her gradually coming to trust herself - searching for appropriate and effective expressions of her womanhood in male-defined positions of power, and coming vividly alive in a legislative environment filled with invention, optimism, and creativity. She shows how she at first minimized and then avoided emotional whiplash by learning when to take risks and when to seek safety. We see her being at once drained and energized by the tussles of political give-and-take; allowing herself to be mentored by politically knowledgeable men; coming into her own as Appropriations Committee Chair - and then holding her own as a Democratic lieutenant governor in a male-dominated Republican gubernatorial administration . We see her and the women on her staff during her three-term governorship working to create a new kind of political culture while at the same time teaming up with colleagues on all levels of state government to achieve solid victories, especially in matters of the environment, education, children's health, and family well-being. We learn how Madeleine Kunin and her own family constantly had to - and did - reinvent their ways of living. We catch the excitement and romance that can reside in political life. And we come to see that women can succeed in it without sacrificing their values - and that they can make a difference.

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