Date of Graduation

5-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Political Science

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Political Science

Advisor/Mentor

Parry, Janine A.

Committee Member/Reader

Rapert, Molly

Committee Member/Second Reader

Maxwell, Angie

Committee Member/Third Reader

Levine, Bill

Abstract

Numerous books, papers, journals, articles, and newspapers have explored the human experience in the American South for many decades. Much of this recorded history and further academic and historical literature spans the time period since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Most of these works, while claiming to focus on the entire population, address only the life experiences of men while assuming their information pertains to the entire population. Although a portion of these accounts focus on the African American experience overall, just a fraction examines the female experience. In this paper I will be examining women’s political experiences in the post-Nineteenth Amendment American South with a focus on comparing and contrasting the backgrounds, careers, campaigns, election strategies, and outcomes of two oppositional politicians: Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Stacey Abrams, who both ran for governorship in the two southern states of Arkansas and Georgia in 2022. Quite useful will be a century’s comparison of the political experiences of white and black women since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, leading right up to modern-day where these two resolute, trailblazing women have ascended to the position in society where they so proudly stand and represent those with like-minded political positions.

Keywords

Sarah Huckabee Sanders; Stacey Abrams; Southern Politics; Arkansas; Georgia; Racism; Sexism

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