Governing Codes examines the political identity of four contemporary U.S. political figures_Democrats Ann Richards and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republicans Christine Todd Whitman and Elizabeth Dole_illustrating how metaphor plays a central role in the construction of public identity in U.S. politics. Anderson and Sheeler analyze how familiar narratives and stereotypes about women and power often govern media portrayals of public women, containing and constraining them, but also how these women mine the metaphorical landscape for rhetorical strategies they can use to accomplish their...

Governing Codes examines the political identity of four contemporary U.S. political figures Democrats Ann Richards and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republicans Christine Todd Whitman and Elizabeth Dole illustrating how metaphor plays a central role in the construction of public identity in U.S. politics. Anderson and Sheeler analyze how familiar narratives and stereotypes about women and power often govern media portrayals of public women, containing and constraining them, but also how these women mine the metaphorical landscape for rhetorical strategies they can use to accomplish their...

What elements of American political and rhetorical culture block the imagining--and thus, the electing--of a woman as president? Examining both major-party and third-party campaigns by women, including the 2008 campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, the authors of Woman President: Confronting Postfeminist Political Culture identify the factors that limit electoral possibilities for women.

Pundits have been predicting women's political ascendency for years. And yet, although the 2008 presidential campaign featured Hillary Clinton as an early frontrunner for the Democratic...