Washington College Magazine
Skirting Politics
Melissa Deckman, associate professor of political science, was a frequent commentator on the midterm election, appearing in USA Today, Gazette.Net, and on C-SPAN's "The Washington Journal."
Like the women in her new textbook, Melissa Deckman, associate professor of political science, was frustrated. She craved an all-encompassing textbook for use in her Women in Politics course—a book that offered in-depth coverage of women as political elites and provided a balanced account of both liberal and conservative political women.
So she wrote it herself. Well, almost. She enlisted two colleagues in similar positions—Julie Dolan of Macalester College and Michele Swers of Georgetown University—to help give voice to Women and Politics: Paths to Power and Political Influence. Just released by Pearson/Prentice Hall, the book tells the stories behind not only women as participants in public affairs, but also women as political movers-and-shakers and policy makers at all levels of government.
"There were a lot of gaps in the existing textbooks," Deckman says. "We wanted to focus on topics often neglected, such as women in local government and in the media."
To Deckman's delight, her first experience publishing a textbook has produced positive results. "My students have become, in a sense, my test subjects. I observe firsthand the difference the text is making in their understanding of political women."
Deckman is also the author of School Board Battles: The Christian Right in Local Politics (Georgetown University Press, 2004) and co-author of Women with a Mission: Religion, Gender, and the Politics of Women Clergy (University of Alabama Press, 2004). She has taught at Washington College since 2000.
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