2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

Hillary Clinton was not the first women to run for President in the United States, but she was the first to win. Well sort of...In a bitterly fought campaign, Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Donald Trump, whose campaign of mysogyny and xenophobia effectively appealed to what is being described a "populist" base of supporters. Trump's inauguration was followed the next day by an outpouring of protest by millions of women and men who gathered across the globe to protest the policies he promised to enact.

This panel revisits the campaign to ask "what happened" and "what now"? Ellen Fitzpatrick, author of The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women's Quest for the American Presidency, will discuss the historic nature of Clinton's candidacy and what her "defeat" portends. Andrea Bernstein, who covered Clinton for WNYC/National Public Radio, will discuss the election from a journalistic point of view. Loretta Ross, longtime advocate of reproductive rights, and Lourdes Gutierrez Najera, anthropologist/ethnographer of immigration, discuss efforts to mobilize response to the "disruptive" actions of the new administration as it seeks to set back gains made by movements in support of human rights. Carolyn Eisenberg, an antiwar activist long involved in United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) will speak to the issue of militarism in the campaign and in the current administration.

While the focus of this panel is on the United States, international participants are invited to report on "populist" efforts in their own countries during the Q & A period.