Keynote Lecture by Lani Guinier*
Please click the links below to download audio files from the conference:
About the Conference
The state of democracy in the United States is undeniably troubling. In the last
Presidential election, only 55.27% of the voting-age American population cast
their ballots. Amazingly, a participation rate of less than two-thirds is still the
highest turnout since 1968. Our representational political system represents
few, particularly when we acknowledge the lines of race, class, and gender.
While the number of women elected to Congress and elective executive
offices is indeed increasing, the statistics are still staggeringly low. Of the 435
members of the House of Representatives in the current US Congress, 86 are
women. Of those 86 women, 11 are African American, 7 are Latina, and 2
are Asian Pacific Islander. There remains only one woman of color ever to be
elected to the US Senate in its 220 year history.
This year's Scholar & Feminist Conference, The State of Democracy: Gender
and Political Participation, is particularly timely, as we enter a Presidential
election year with especially high stakes. We feel that there is no better
time to examine not just who gets elected and how elections work, but the
entire state of democracy in the United States. The conference will explore
questions about representative and participatory democracy, about alternative
models of democracy offered in various social movements and in other areas
of the world, and about how to build a democracy that might involve all
Americans at all levels.
*We regret that Vandana Shiva, who was scheduled to deliver a lecture, will be unable to attend this year's conference due to illness.
Please note that the keynote lecture by Lani Guinier has been moved forward to 1:30 pm.
© 2008 Barnard Center for Research on Women | bcrw@barnard.edu
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