Book Review of Pearls, Politics, & Power: How Women Can Win and LeadCurley

Pearls, Politics & Power: How Women Can Win and Lead is part memoir and part scholarly text. Written by the first female governor of Vermont, the text is based on interviews with women in politics with research to support the conclusions they draw. As a former Ambassador to her native Switzer- land and current faculty member, Madeleine Kunin writes a succinct, if not sometimes truncated, account of the status of women in American politics, touching on the primary barriers to women\u27s ascent to elected office. Con- sistent with the complex weaving of psychological and sociological factors that affect access to power, Kunin\u27s text moves between raising questions and (sometimes) providing answers. Approached with this understanding, the book becomes an appropriate text for those who want a broad overview of the issues surrounding gender and politics and for women who want to enter politics