Corrine McConnaughy Profile picture
Political scientist @Princeton | race, gender, activism, democracy | Author, The Woman Suffrage Movement in America | Mom of 3 | 📷 Sameer Khan/Fotobuddy
Sep 5, 2018 29 tweets 8 min read
Women and Politics is a great class to teach. My students’ minds are regularly blown about how the content doesn’t comply with their priors.

I am happy to have those with degrees in hand sit in and adjust their priors, too.

It’s a big literature. Lots of stuff to learn. Day 1 we talk about the fundamental concept of power--pulling from radical feminist scholars Bachrach & Braratz (yes, that was sarcasm)--and how a system of power entrenches itself through mobilization of bias. We use this to understand patriarchy and the meaning of feminism.
Sep 2, 2018 14 tweets 3 min read
Saw lots of great stuff at #APSA2018, but am afraid I also saw a couple people bomb the Q&A portion of their panel. With job market season upon us, want to share some thoughts (*not* suggestions) on what Q&A time is and how to think about doing it well. First, yes—Q&A can be high stakes in interviews and make or break you. But seems like some people don’t realize that’s because LOTS of things can be happening in Q&A, some of which are about your work and some of which are not.
Jul 27, 2018 18 tweets 5 min read
What does “white feminism” look like in its purest form? I give you some primary source material from the records of the ERA Club of New Orleans—a white women’s suffrage organization. Their 1918 Suffrage referendum campaign literature: "On the part of the women of Orleans Parish who believe in democracy, we earnestly ask for your vote."

Democracy! Yes! Everyone should get to vote in a democracy! Right?

Nope.
Jul 1, 2018 4 tweets 1 min read
This is not a statement with any firm basis in political science research.

Political science would tell you:

-mobilization of your own party base matters immensely
-average voters won’t see or remember this
-GOP elites will find a way to build resentment with or without this Indeed, the idea that Trump’s re-election rests on whether the left responds to him with “civility” and some magic agenda that somehow overcomes the Trump/GOP identity politics that gave us Trump in the first place is one I have yet to see any real evidence for. Anyone?
Jun 11, 2018 8 tweets 3 min read
You'd need a social movement for that. And one that invests people whose voting rights aren't under attack to latch on to the effort.

As GOP has learned: far easier for a party to whittle away at the other's base with disenfranchisement measures than to enfranchise their own. This remains a big disappointment to me in the political sophistication of the left: how many now decry the fall of norms when the foundation of democracy itself--the right to vote--has been under increasing duress for decades. And still they see no fundamental connection.
May 14, 2018 28 tweets 5 min read
Ugh. Ok. Let me try this from an actual human who knows social science point of view.

I grew up with working class parents in a conservative town in Ohio. I’m a political scientist. I am married to a black man from the rural South. Currently reside just outside DC. Context! 1/ Um, so, regular people from the middle of the country are probably right when they pick any political figure and call them a terrible person. Any of them. Either party. Strategic elites violate good person norms. 2/
Apr 6, 2018 21 tweets 4 min read
I just read this transcript of the @NPR Sandberg on Facebook re: data, privacy, and ads. And it makes me feel worse, not better, about the company. I found it to read remarkably like the non-apologizing apologies for environments that generate countless #MeToo stories. 1/ Here’s the link: npr.org/2018/04/05/599… 2/
Jan 15, 2018 16 tweets 4 min read
This is as awful as I expected.
From the message to the messenger - whose bio is no happenstance in the intended effect on the Fox News audience - this is shameful.
#MLK was a leader of a movement not for blind unity, but for true unity based on justice fulfilled. Justice. My husband - who, yes, is black - has taken me on a privileged journey over our 18 years through my own ignorance. He comes from rural Louisiana and from a family that sharecropped and worked domestic jobs to invest in that one family member who might rise.
Sep 27, 2017 13 tweets 2 min read
This sort of message is a feature of racial resentment politics: highlighting "proper behavior" from the target group. 1/n We're more used to seeing this sort of messaging around deservingness. Hence, measures of racial resentment tap that dynamic explicitly. 2/n
Sep 23, 2017 6 tweets 2 min read
Not just black athletes: black male athletes. Protesting ones at that. There is a unique resentment there that Trump is tapping. 1/n From an experiment I did: when shown a peaceful protest, white conservatives especially disapproved if black men were the protesters. 2/n