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Waking up to womanhood

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Waking up to womanhood

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Content WAKING UP TO WOMANHOOD
by
Megan Botel
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM (THE ARTS))
May 2021
Copyright 2021 Megan Botel
ii

Table of Contents

Abstract…………………………………………….……………………………………………..iii

Introduction: Waking up to Womanhood…………………………………………………………1

I: The 19th Amendment was ratified 100 years ago. This group is mobilizing
the vote today……………………………………………………………………………………...4
The Lily

II: ‘Where are the women?’: The centennial of the 19th Amendment and rewriting
women’s history…………………………………………………………………………………...8
USA Today

III: 'Crucial voices': the US women leading the fight against voter suppression…………….….13
The Guardian

IV: “Women Doing Whatever We Want”: The Little-Known Fight for Women’s
Financial Rights…………………………………………………………………………………21
Ms. Magazine

V: Behind the growing movement to add more women to history lessons………………...……29
The Lily

VI: How Black women worked to secure Joe Biden's election as president……………...……..34
USA Today

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………….39

iii

Abstract

This project is a series of articles I wrote and published on various outlets about women and
politics. The work explores the role of women in modern society at a time when the genders
technically have equal rights but experience far different realities.

When I joined the GroundTruth Project as a voting rights reporting fellow in June 2020, a pattern
began to emerge: Nearly all the top voting rights mobilization efforts were run by women, and
many were run by Black women. In interviews, quickly became clear that out of a tumultuous
and violent shared history, true activism is borne. I then broadened my reporting to capture how
a shared past of gender and racial oppression has shaped the reality that women and women of
color live today.

I spoke to women in all corners of the U.S., and internationally as far as Afghanistan. In these
conversations with women in such different circumstances, I heard strikingly similar themes – of
fear, oppression, abuse, hope and grit. That tie was perhaps made even stronger at this particular
moment in history by the shared experience of the global pandemic.

Due to the virus, I reported most of these stories by phone, from my apartment in Los Angeles.

1
Introduction

I’ve taken my rights as a woman for granted. Growing up in Marin County, one of the
most liberal places on earth, I never felt held back by my gender. My household was void of
stereotypical gender roles: My father cooked and loved to decorate; my mother was the driver,
because otherwise she would get carsick. They treated my brother and I equally.
I was born into a world in which I assumed I would pursue a career, indulge my hobbies
and enjoy some version of the life that I want. Absent any obvious barriers to my success,
happiness or freedom due to my gender – I didn’t think much about my womanhood. But maybe
I should have.
Feminism’s founding principle is that women and men are equal and, growing up, I felt
we were. But eventually I realized how much of the trauma I experienced – events I only began
reckoning with in my late 20s – depended on my gender. If this was supposed to be equality, I
wanted more.
I look back on what I endured in my youth, unknowingly, all because of my womanhood.
I remember in high school how older boys would say they wanted to “run the train” on me or one
of my friends, how they would openly talk about the quality of our breasts and butts and question
if we were hot enough to fuck. I remember how after I refused to hook up with a guy at a party,
he spread a rumor that I was sexually deformed. I remember how when I got very drunk for the
first time the summer before college one of my guy “friends” violated me in the middle of the
night, and how I spent the next year hating myself for it, not realizing for many, many years that
it was rape.
By the time I entered those seminal high school years, feminism as we all imagine it had
already happened. Thanks to the 70-year-long women’s suffrage movement that paved the way
for the second wave of feminism of the 1960s – which I hardly recall being mentioned in my
education – I was born into a world where women had equal rights. Black and white images of
Gloria Steinem, her bleached- blond streaks and iconic aviators, marching alongside hundreds of
thousands of women to fight for reproductive rights, seemed lifetimes in the past.
But a new uprising — the one that allows me to explore the intricacies of my gender as I
do now — hadn’t yet begun.
2
The #MeToo movement, which gained momentum on social media in 2016 after a video
of Donald Trump spewing sexual expletives circulated the internet, unveiled a deep, hidden
decay involving sex and power in the workplace. As millions of women around the world shared
their stories of abuse, the world began to wake up to a common and harrowing narrative about
men in power. And as I read, listened and spoke, I woke up to my own story, and the pain I
didn’t realize I had been hiding.
While the #MeToo movement has been a cause for celebration, it also elicited a deep
sense of rage and regret within myself, for not speaking up about the injustices in my own past
while they were happening. For playing into a history of female oppression while paving the way
for its continuation. For not realizing, when I was 16, that a boy slandering me about my sexual
makeup was sexual harassment. Or that, when I was 18, the events of that night that I hardly
remember but will never forget had been rape.
Yet this was a decade ago, and much has changed. Ten years ago, I didn’t have the tools I
needed to get the justice I and all women deserve. Now, armed with the wisdom that emerges
when a world of women speak out in synchrony, I do.
2020 was a year of seismic shifts, and a momentous year for women’s history. It marked
the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. The
conversation around women’s rights progressed and greatly diversified, as comprehensive efforts
to honor and properly document women’s stories spurred nationwide. When Supreme Court
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, anti-abortion advocate Amy Barrett was confirmed to take the
feminist icon’s place, and Black women kicked their political advocacy into overdrive,
successfully removing Donald Trump from the presidency.
Waking up to my womanhood meant grappling with polarities: the indomitable strength
that women displayed to secure the rights I now enjoy, and the soft tolerance that kept us quiet
for far too long. It meant admitting all of the times I did not speak up when I could have, and
making a commitment to understand the nuances of my gender and a new feminism as it reorders
to the modern world. This work is a part of that exploration.
In June, I joined The GroundTruth Project as a reporting fellow on the Preserving
Democracy team to cover women’s stories in the run up to what many deemed the most
consequential election in American history. These reported stories reflect the themes I have lived
for the past 10 years in my own psyche and how they influence and shape current events during
3
this iconic time in human history. While the ideas have only been brewing in my mind for a
decade, women from generations past planted these seeds more than a century ago. This is a
celebration of the women around the world who embrace the mission, a realization of the work
that remains, and an exploration of how I can best serve this movement.
I don’t know how or if the damage that so many women have endured can be repaired.
But I do know this: Only by remembering women and honoring their stories can we shift the
trajectory of our future. Executive director of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission,
Anna Laymon, perhaps put it best: “For women to know where we’re going, we have to know
where we came from and what it took to get to where we are.”
1

1
Laymon, phone interview.
4

The 19th Amendment was ratified 100 years ago. This group is
mobilizing the vote today.

(Courtesy of LaTosha Brown; Lily illustration)

Megan Botel
August 18, 2020

Twenty-two years ago, LaTosha Brown ran for State Board of Education in Alabama.

Throughout the campaign, the Selma native recalls making speeches at churches and being asked
to speak from the floor. The incumbent, a male minister, spoke from the podium.

“I sit squarely at the intersection of racism and sexism,” Brown said. “There was a lot of this
going on.”
2

2
Brown, phone interview.
5
On Election Day in 1998, the race was too tight to call, with results delayed for a week. Once the
election was certified, Brown got a call from the Alabama Democratic Party Chair, Giles
Perkins. She lost.

But Perkins was especially apologetic as he explained what happened at election headquarters.
Five minutes after the results became final, the local sheriff “found” 800 uncounted ballots
locked in a safe.

Brown was incredulous. “It was one of those moments when I felt completely powerless,” she
said.

In 2016, Brown, who now lives in Atlanta, co-founded the Black Voters Matter Fund. While
Brown has been working in voter empowerment for over 25 years — her entire adult life, she
said — she finally decided to build an organization that could help grow the capacity of grassroot
groups in the Black community following the election of President Trump. Beyond providing
funding and resources to the groups, Black Voters Matter also acts as a thought and strategy
partner, helping organizations identify and meet specific advocacy goals.

Since her first foray into politics as a young woman to the establishment of BVM, Brown has
dedicated her life to fighting voter suppression and mobilizing Black voters, starting in Selma —
the home of “Bloody Sunday” — and has since expanded her efforts nationally.

Brown’s work builds upon an over century-long legacy of women-led enfranchisement activism.
Exactly 100 years ago, women earned the right to vote following the 70-year struggle of the
women’s suffrage movement, the longest social justice movement America has yet seen. It
culminated in the ratification of the 19th Amendment on Aug. 18, 1920.

But not all American women reaped the benefits of the single largest enfranchisement effort in
the nation’s history. Poll taxes, literacy tests and other forms of voter suppression largely kept
Black women from the polls until the hard-fought passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

6
Now, Brown and many other women are still leading the charge nationwide in the fight for free
and fair elections, an initiative they have found increasingly important since the U.S. Supreme
Court gutted crucial elements of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.
3

“We find a lot of the grass roots work is being led by women,” Brown said. “But oftentimes
what you see is the voice and face of a man. And this has happened throughout history, even
during the civil rights movement.”

To elevate these voices, Brown says they prioritize working with organizations that are led by
Black women, and the majority of her staff at Black Voters Matter are Black women.
In April, Brown signed a letter along with over 1,000 other women requesting that presumptive
Democratic nominee Joe Biden put a Black woman on the ticket for vice president.

But then George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, and records soon surfaced that Sen. Amy
Klobuchar (D-Minn.) — a likely contender for VP — declined to press charges on more than a
dozen officers accused of killing civilians during the years she was Minnesota’s top prosecutor.
Their request suddenly seemed more dire amid protests for racial justice.

Brown and others didn’t see any evidence that Biden was taking their request seriously, so they
redoubled their efforts. She and seven other women published an op-ed and video in The
Washington Post demanding — not requesting, Brown emphasized — that Biden choose a Black
woman running mate.

“Black women are miracle workers,” said TV-personality Sunny Hostin in the video. “We have
been saving the Democratic Party since 1965.”

Brown received a slew of praises and criticisms, including from people who said they should just
be focused on beating Trump.

3
Barnes, “Supreme court.”
7
The tone, Brown says, changed when Sen. Kamala D. Harris was announced as Biden’s pick last
week.

They “didn’t think that it would be possible,” Brown said. “But we were willing to risk it all. We
knew that now is the time.”

8

‘Where are the women?’: The centennial of the 19th Amendment
and rewriting women’s history
The fight for women's suffrage was one of the longest-running, most impactful enfranchisement
efforts in our history. Finally, it's getting attention.

(Protesting in Washington D.C. in 1917, National Archives)

Megan Botel
July 30, 2020

Allison Lange, a women’s suffrage historian, grew up reading the "American Girl" novels, which
portrayed the lives of corresponding American Girl dolls in 19th and 20th century America.
Along with millions of other mostly young girls who continue to be fanatical about all things
American Girl, Lange says, she felt a sense of common identity with the dolls. "I saw myself in
those stories,” she recalls. “And it piqued my interest in history.”
4

4
Lange, phone interview.
9
Now an associate professor of women’s history at Wentworth Institute of Technology, Lange
knows her exposure to these types of stories — histories centered around women and girls —
was far from ordinary. Complex women’s stories in traditional history education, she says,
remain largely untold. Her life is dedicated to filling that gap.
Untaught American history
In commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment, with which women first won the right
to vote, Lange and the 22 other women who make up the Women’s Suffrage Centennial
Commission came together with one simple but ambitious goal: To educate Americans about
women’s often-ignored U.S. history.
The commission — the brainchild of Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. — is a temporary federal
panel made up of veteran feminist activists, political leaders, elected officials and historians
seeking to honor and celebrate women’s history with this anniversary.
“For women, our history is so rarely taught to us,” says Anna Laymon, the commission’s
executive director. “For women to know where we’re going, we have to know where we came
from and what it took to get to where we are.”
5

The women’s suffrage movement was one of the longest running social justice movement
America has yet seen. It spanned from 1848, when the first women’s rights convention was held
in Seneca Falls, New York, to 1920, culminating in the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the
largest single enfranchisement effort in American history.
6
Many argue that the movement
continues to inspire voting rights efforts nationwide.

But traditional history education and textbooks massively undercut the immensity of the
movement, historians say. Women’s stories and female characters throughout history are often
documented as a side story to male protagonists and told from a male point of view.

5
Laymon, phone interview.
6
Thulin, “Thorny Road.”
10
The status and experiences of women in standard U.S. social studies curriculum, reported the
National Women’s History Museum, are “not well integrated into U.S. state history standards.”
The report criticized the standards’ overemphasis on women’s domestic roles and the exclusion
of women’s roles in leadership.
The battle is huge,” Laymon says. “This is a moment in American history that most people have
never heard of. Most people have no idea what suffrage is.”
Restoring lost voices
Reforming history education is not just about proper documentation. For women and other
underrepresented groups, Lange says, how history is archived shapes how people orient
themselves in society now and in the future. “It’s about seeing oneself,” the historian says.
“Understanding how people who may have been like me lived life in the U.S. a century ago is a
really empowering thing to have. By telling the right story, it does inspire a new generation to
think about the ways they want to change society.”
The commemoration of the centennial is largely symbolic, a bipartisan effort to educate
Americans about the monumental efforts of the women’s suffrage movement. But it has also
provoked real action. Since its inception in January, the Suffrage Commission launched a series
of podcasts, blog posts, virtual events and an initiative to arm libraries across the country with
children’s books about the movement. This month, the commission, in partnership with every
female senator in office, pushed Congress to officially designate August 2020 as National
Women’s Suffrage Month.
Because the women’s suffrage movement was long criticized for “white washing,” one of the
Suffrage Commission’s primary goals is to promote Black women’s stories and amplify the
voices of lesser known suffrage activists, like Mary Church Terrell.
7

“We remember Susan B. Anthony,” Lange says. “Why don’t we remember Terrell? That's the
story that we’re trying to change here.”

7
Staples, “Whitwashed Monument.”
11
And the group is dedicated to disrupting the traditional language, characters and narrative of
suffrage history on all levels: A recent post on the commission’s blog tells the little known story
of queer suffrage leaders. “The whole point of academia is to create new stories,” Lange says.
A long, ongoing campaign
The centennial of the 19th Amendment is not the first widespread push to rewrite a skewed
history. Fifty years ago, well-known feminist activists — the likes of Gloria Steinem, Bella
Abzug and Betty Friedan — led the charge during what was referred to as the second-wave
feminist movement.
The Women’s Strike for Equality, on Aug. 26, 1970, marked the 50th anniversary of the
ratification of the 19th Amendment and called for equal employment and educational
opportunities for women. This was sponsored by the National Organization of Women, which
spearheaded the fight to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, although it was ultimately
not ratified. Feminist authors at the time published now infamous books, like Ellen DuBois’
“Feminism and Suffrage,” that sought to rewrite and reinvigorate women’s history.
Recent years have seen a new wave of women’s stories and voices coming to light. The #MeToo
and #SayHerName campaigns encourage women to speak out against sexual assault and
harassment, and for those fighting for civil and social justice to amplify the stories of Black
women.
While the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission does not have direct goals to inform
policy change or school curriculum, Lange says such effects will be inevitable. “This moment of
awareness of women in politics is going to inevitably change policies,” the historian says, “I
hope.”
She expects the high-profile celebration of a woman’s right to vote during a critical election year
will spur increased voter turnout.
“From this, I’m hoping that people value the vote,” Lange says. “And choose to cast a ballot in
2020.”
12
Executive Director Laymon, too, strives to inspire a more cultural, systemic shift that challenges
the way Americans view and consume history: “As we’re looking through our history books, if
we don’t see women’s stories, I hope people at least ask, ‘Where are the women?’ ”
13

'Crucial voices': the US women leading the fight against voter
suppression

From top left: Adrianne Shropshire, Tammy Baldwin, Cara McClure, Laura Miller, Dejuana
Thompson and Patricia Brigham. Photograph: Courtesy of Adrianne Shropshire, Tammy
Baldwin, Cara McClure, Laura Miller, Dejuana Thompson, and Patricia Brigham.
Megan Botel
August 18, 2020

With the US democracy facing perhaps its gravest threat, from voter suppression to the
decimation of the US Postal Service – activists are working doubly hard this year to ensure free
and fair elections.
14
But present-day enfranchisement efforts often fail to acknowledge how the 70-year-long
women’s suffragette movement has informed that work. “Before suffragists, you didn’t see
groups engaging in public civil disobedience,” said Colleen Shogan, senior vice-president and
director of the David M Rubenstein Center at the White House Historical Association. “No one
had picketed in front of the White House before Alice Paul and others did on 10 January 1917.”
8

The movement culminated in the ratification of the 19th amendment on 18 August 1920,
marking the end of one of America’s longest-running social justice movements. It produced the
single largest enfranchisement effort in the nation’s history, guaranteeing women the right to
vote. But it was only a beginning.
Many, especially Black women, did not benefit from the 19th amendment. But they did not
waver in fighting for equal rights. Fannie Lou Hamer, among the leaders of the 1964 Freedom
Summer Campaign and co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party, carried her
force into the civil rights movement. Dorothy Height, who was a key organizer of the 1963
March on Washington, helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971.
9

These women paved the way with a century-long history of female-led activism. And it is still
women leading the charge. These are some of them.
Patricia Brigham
Florida: Brigham is the president of the League of Women Voters, Florida chapter.
Patricia Brigham considers herself a late bloomer.
10

It wasn’t until her late 40s, following a long career as a radio broadcaster, that she says her life
really began: At 47, she went back to graduate school; at 51, she started running marathons; and
at 53, she got engaged to her now husband.
In early 2013, Brigham joined the League of Women Voters of Florida, the century-old non-
partisan advocacy group born on the heels of the women’s suffrage movement.

8
Shogan, phone interview.
9
Lacker, “Jailed. Beaten.”
10
Brigham, phone interview.
15
After the Sandy Hook school shooting, Brigham led the league’s efforts pushing for gun
legislation, forming the Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence. Largely due to the group’s
advocacy, the Florida legislature passed its first gun control law in over two decades.
Brigham was elected the league of Florida’s president in 2018, and took on the group’s core
focus: fighting voter suppression. Over the past year, she has lobbied for the passage of the
Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill that would restore the Voting Rights Act dismantled by
the US supreme court in 2013. In 2018, Brigham and her team also won approval for early
voting sites at several college campuses. More than 60,000 Floridian college students voted early
in the 2018 midterm elections.
The league also successfully pushed the Florida electorate to amend the state constitution to
enfranchise Florida’s 1.4 million ex-felons. But after some brief success, the Republican
legislature swiftly moved to gut the law.
In GOP-controlled Florida, lobbying to get out the vote during a crucial election year is a
particularly rigorous battle. But Brigham says she feels strangely prepared for this, and she
credits marathon running: “When you are suffering out in the Florida heat, you develop grit and
strength,” Brigham said, remembering when she ran the marine corps marathon – with a
fractured toe – and still finished the race
Cara McClure
Alabama: McClure is a veteran Alabama-based community activist, former director of
Black Voters Matter, alumna of the Woke Vote fellowship program and creator of the non-
profit Faith and Works, a civic engagement collective for faith leaders organizing their
communities to vote.
It was 13 July 2013. Birmingham-native Cara McClure was traveling to Memphis, Tennessee, to
visit the Lorraine motel, where Martin Luther King was murdered in 1968. The television was on
at the restaurant where she ate dinner. News from the trial of George Zimmerman, charged with
the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, blasted through the room: acquitted of all charges.
16
Her cellphone rang. It was her 18-year-old son. “We both were just really quiet,” McClure
recalled. “I had no idea how to comfort him. I was just as disturbed.”
11

To soothe her son, she told him they would go to a Black Lives Matter protest in Birmingham
when she returned home. Since then, McClure, 51, has dedicated her life to mobilizing Black
voters in her home state of Alabama, the birthplace of the civil rights movement. She founded
the Black Lives Matter, Birmingham chapter, and became the Alabama state coordinator of
Black Voters Matter. In late 2019, she launched her own non-profit, Faith & Works, which aims
to empower faith leaders to organize their communities.
McClure is passionate about engaging “unlikely and unengaged voters”, that is, those who live in
poor, rural districts and often lack internet access. Every Saturday since closures began, McClure
and her team deliver more than 60,000lb of groceries to residents who live in Alabama’s public
housing projects. While doing so, she talks to residents about their voter registration status.
McClure says she is able to relate to these communities especially well. She herself faced
financial struggles when her husband left her in 2011. She posted an ad on Craigslist, “asking
any generous folks to please let a mother and son in”. For three years, they hopped around and
slept on strangers’ floors, homeless. “I was a housewife before that,” she said. “I had no money. I
know what it’s like to be in a tight spot, and so I don’t judge anyone. I just listen.”
Tammy Baldwin
Wisconsin: The Wisconsin senator Baldwin, a Democrat, became the first female member
of Congress in 1998, and the first openly gay challenger sent to Congress.
Tammy Baldwin says she first understood the power of women in politics as a member of the
city council in Madison, Wisconsin. She and her colleagues debated that day in 1986 whether to
fund a new nightly bus route for Madison Technical College on the outskirts of town. Students
complained of a lack of safe transportation home from their night classes. In the first half of the
meeting, only male members of the council spoke – scoffing at the proposal.
12

11
McClure, phone interview.
12
Baldwin, phone interview.
17
Finally, Baldwin remembers, a female council member stood up and told her story. She had
attended night classes so that she could care for her children by day and recalled the many nights
that she felt unsafe, walking home alone along dimly lit streets. Then, one by one, other women
in the room stood up to recount their own stories. Once the women spoke, the bus route was
approved.
Since she entered politics in 1986, Baldwin, Wisconsin’s first female member of Congress and
the nation’s first openly gay challenger sent to Congress, has been making history, pushing
healthcare reform and better representation in Congress among women and LGBTQ+ people. In
2017, Baldwin started the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, a temporary federal panel
with a goal to commemorate the centennial of the 19th amendment and to educate Americans
about women’s suffrage.
These days, Baldwin is focused on fighting the troubling trend of voter suppression in
Wisconsin, particularly to do with issues of redistricting – the state has some of the most
gerrymandered maps in the country. In 2018, 53% of Wisconsinites voted Democrat on the ticket
for state legislature, Baldwin said, but Democrats only occupy a third of the seats. “And
Republicans know this,” she added.
From now until election day, Baldwin is in the midst of carrying out a number of initiatives to
fight against these restrictions through widespread education. But for November, given expected
slowdowns to the US Postal Service, she wants to make one message loud and clear: “Mail your
ballot in two weeks early. Vote early. Vote early,” she said. “This is something we can
absolutely control.”
Adrianne Shropshire
New York: Shropshire is a veteran political and community organizer, executive director
of BlackPac, a national organization committed to promoting the Black political
infrastructure.
Spring, Los Angeles, 1992. Widespread riots broke out after four police officers were acquitted
in the brutal videotaped beating of Rodney King, a local Black resident. Adrianne Shropshire, 23
at the time, was working for a local city council person, Mark Ridley-Thomas, and began to
18
reconsider everything: “I don’t know that I need to be in city hall,” she recalls thinking. “I need
to be in the community.”
13

Now, Shropshire is the co-founder and executive director of BlackPac, a Super Pac aimed at
mobilizing Black Democrats, largely motivated by dwindling voter turnout in the community
after Barack Obama left the White House.
BlackPac has scored critical wins. In Virginia’s first Trump-era election in 2017, BlackPac
poured $1.1m into campaigns to get Black votes for Virginia Democrats in the statewide race,
credited for keeping candidate Ralph Northam in the governor’s office.
Leading up to Alabama’s 2017 primary election, BlackPac funded several on-the-ground Black
voter mobilization organizations, including Dejuana Thompson’s WokeVote. Analysts touted
Black voter turnout as a major factor in Democrat Doug Jones’s victory for the US Senate. Black
voter turnout also increased in the 2018 midterm elections.
“Of course we want to win elections, but success is defined a little bit differently for us,”
Shropshire said. “The work that we do is about transforming the way Black people understand
themselves as crucial voices in our democracy.”
Laura Miller
Washington DC: Miller is the mobilization director for When We All Vote, Michelle
Obama’s voter mobilization non-profit. In 2012, she was the digital program manager for
Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, and went on to become the digital director on
Michelle Obama’s national book tour for Becoming.
At first, Laura Miller, 31, viewed working in politics as a “side hustle”.
14
Over the summers in
high school, she would pass out literature on her state representatives door-to-door in the
sweltering Illinois heat. In college, she applied at the very last second – and was accepted – to
the prestigious White House internship in the Office of Digital Strategy, and started to consider
politics as a viable career.

13
Shropshire, phone interview.
14
Miller, phone interview.
19
Then she “caught the Obama bug”. When she finished her White House internship, she began
working as the digital program manager for Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
When Michelle Obama started When We All Vote, her non-partisan voter registration non-profit
in 2018, Miller was on part of a small team that figured out how to make it happen. As a bona
fide digital strategy expert, Miller, who serves as the organization’s mobilization director, was
perhaps more prepared than anyone when pandemic restrictions disrupted voter mobilization
plans nationwide this year.
Instead of in-person, on-the-ground voter registration events, When We All Vote has been
hosting virtual “couch parties” on Facebook Live since March, showing participants nationwide
how to use the app Outvote, the initiative’s texting platform. During the virtual DJ-tracked
“dance parties”, participants are encouraged to text eligible voters. After the first event, 500,000
eligible voters were texted and 19,000 people started or completed their registration application.
As a young woman in politics, Miller says she’s been lucky. On the Obama campaign trail, she
said she was constantly surrounded by a slew of powerful women. “Seeing all these amazing
women who continue to empower me and inspire me is something that I think was very unique
to the Obama administration,” she said.
Dejuana Thompson
Washington DC: Thomspon is a political activist, consultant and the creator of Woke Vote,
a non-profit focused on mobilizing an unprecedented percentage of Black millennial and
faith-based voters in Alabama.
Imagining better communities is not a new concept for Dejuana Thompson. Her hometown of
Birmingham, Alabama, is 80% Black, but she didn’t feel Black history was being represented in
her high school’s curriculum. So, at 15, she organized a district-wide peer meeting to make it
happen.
15

Decades later, Thompson, 37, started WokeVote in Birmingham in 2017, following a decade-
long career in political strategy, including working on the Obama campaign in 2008 and with the

15
Thompson, phone interview.
20
Democratic National Committee. WokeVote now operates in 12 states. But Thompson has plans
to expand it to all 50 states within five years and build upon their international program
(WokeVote currently has a chapter in Ghana, West Africa).
She has her plan carefully mapped out: “Engage, mobilize and turnout as many African
American voters as possible to actually use their voice in November,” she said.
More specifically, this means 150,000 to 250,000 voters registered through WokeVote by
election day, which she says they are well on their way to doing. “And then there are many,
many longer-term visions,” she emphasized. “But this is the focus for now. I work
incrementally.”

21

“Women Doing Whatever We Want”: The Little-Known Fight for
Women’s Financial Rights
11/27/2020 by MEGAN BOTEL

Terry Neese speaking at the Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women’s PEACE
THROUGH BUSINESS®graduation in 2018. (Courtesy of Terry Neese)
At 28 years old, Oklahoma City-native Terry Neese wanted to buy a building to expand her
small but booming staffing business.
16

16
Neese, phone interview.
22
But this was 1976, and Neese was married. When she went to the bank to take out a loan to buy
the building, she was turned down: She needed her husband to cosign.
“I was furious,” said Neese. “There were very few women business owners in Oklahoma. I had
no clue I didn’t have this right until I tried to take out a loan for that building.”
The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18 reignited a conversation
about women’s rights, including financial ones which modern Western women hardly question.
Ginsburg, who spent much of her early career championing women’s rights, paved the way for
the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, which banned discrimination against
an applicant based on gender, race or religion.
17

And on Oct. 26, Amy Coney Barret took the feminist icon’s place on the Supreme Court—a
move many women strongly protested
18
since President Donald Trump announced her
nomination in late September. Now, with potential rollbacks looming, experts recall the decades
of work to secure landmark women’s rights.
“The Supreme Court now has a great deal of power to say whether access to safe legal abortion
or safe legal contraception is or is not a right protected by the Constitution. If this is rolled back,
any law that protects women can be rolled back,” said Lucinda Finley, an attorney specializing in
women’s and reproductive rights. “What if an employer or bank says: ‘My religion says women
should stay home and raise kids; they shouldn’t run businesses. So I’m not going to lend money
to women’?”
19

This year’s events have also drawn broader attention to women’s rights and activism throughout
history, with Kamala Harris becoming the first Black, female vice president after much women-
led activism to get her there, paired with the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th
amendment, in which white women won the right to vote. All this has spurred a slate of activism

17
Rosen, “Ginsburg.”
18
Felton, “Coney.”
19
Finley, phone interview.
23
to promote the largely under-taught history of women’s suffrage and women’s history—which
historians and education experts urge is essential for shaping a progressive view of women in
society now and in the future.
How Women Earned Right To Take Out Bank Loans in Their Own Name
Back in the ‘70s, Neese wasn’t a political lobbyist yet, and didn’t know that a state law required
her, a married woman, to get her husband to cosign for a bank loan. Single women could use any
male relative—even a son. And many women today don’t know that, up until the surprisingly
recent year of 1988, they wouldn’t have been able to either.
“1988 was not that long ago,” Neese said. “When I say this to people in speeches or at
conferences they are like: ‘What? Women couldn’t borrow money?’”
In 1972, there were only 402,000 women-owned businesses nationwide, generating $8.1 billion
annually. Today, women own 12.3 million businesses in the U.S.—an increase of nearly 3,000%
since the ‘70s—and contribute $1.8 trillion to the U.S economy per year, according to a report by
American Express.
20

“These stats are incredibly important,” Neese said. “We jumped significantly as soon as our
access to capital was actually secured.”
In 1986, The Small Business Administration released a study downplaying women’s contribution
to the economy, encouraging the public perception that most women-owned businesses were
unserious—sewing, knitting and jewelry-making.

20
McLaughlin. “Women-Owned Businesses.”
24
Determined to address barriers to women’s enterprise development and abolish the male cosigner
law, Neese promptly brought together women business owners to start the Oklahoma City
chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO).
“I personally had a staffing firm for 11 years that was doing very, very well,” Neese said. “And I
knew a lot of other women in the United States that were doing the same thing.”
Terry Neese lobbying in the 80s. (Courtesy of Terry Neese)
NAWBO asked women around the country to testify to Congress, an attempt to document the
hurdles women faced when trying to borrow money and start businesses. Neese recalled how one
businesswoman said she went to the bank to borrow money and had to take her son to sign the
paperwork. He was 17.
25
After the hearings, then-U.S. Rep. John LaFalce (D-N.Y.) authored the landmark legislation that
became known as the Women Business Ownership Act of 1988, granting women the right to
take out bank loans in their own name.
Energized by the work and inspired to take it further, Neese founded the Institute for Economic
Empowerment of Women(IEEW).
Fighting for Economic Empowerment for Women Worldwide
While an immediately popular program among American women, she knew she needed to
expand internationally, specifically to the Middle East, where the situation with women’s access
to capital was, of course, more dire.
“There is literally a saying in our language that daughters are someone else’s belonging,” said
Manizha Wafeq, a Kabul, Afghanistan native who has worked with IEEW since 2008. “A
daughter will become someone else’s wife, someone else’s bride. So families don’t invest in
their daughters and they go from being their family’s servant to their husband’s family’s
servant.”
21

Wafeq grew up in a progressive family in Kabul, the nation’s capital. Her parents, and especially
her father, always encouraged higher education and career pursuits, so she went on to university
and then to get a master’s degree, and quickly entered the workforce.
“I never thought of myself any less than a man,” Wafeq reflected. “I was very privileged.”

21
Wafeq, phone interview.
26
But Wafeq knows her story is far from common. In the aftershocks of the deeply misogynistic
Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, discrimination in the business world runs rampant against
Afghan women, who still make up only 20 percent of the labor force.
22

“In looking at why women are so inferior to men in Afghanistan, I realized one of the main
issues was financial dependence,” she said.
In 2006, Neese expanded IEEW to Afghanistan through the initiative PEACE THROUGH
BUSINESS® to help oppressed women who had been affected by the Taliban to start new
businesses or reopen ones that had been shuttered. Wafeq was among the first class of women to
graduate the program, and soon became the program’s Afghanistan-based ambassador.
Influenced by Neese to become involved politically, Wafeq then went on to start a non-profit of
her own based out of Kabul called Women Chamber of Congress, which provides gender
training to government officials, who are primarily men.
“[Neese] always said ‘If you are running a business and you’re not involved with politics, then
politics will run your business,’” Wafeq recalled.
Along with providing translation services and computer training for students in the PEACE
THROUGH BUSINESS®program, Wafeq says she pushes the institute to focus recruitment in
the country’s provinces rather than its cities.
“Exposure is so important for everyone, but especially for provincial women,” Wafeq said.
“They remain in their homes, in their villages. they are not aware of what is happening in the
world.”

22
Barr, “Women’s Rights in Afghanistan.”
27
More than reforming specific laws or policies, Wafeq is passionate about changing mindsets.
Some of this happens naturally, she says, when women travel to the U.S. for the two weeks of
training that kicks off the PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS® entrepreneurship program.
“I want women to understand their potentials are not naturally less than men. It’s because of the
way they were brought up,” Wafeq said. “This really is a movement, not a one-time event or
initiative. The work is never ending.”
And though the landscape is more progressive in the U.S., this work is never ending there too.
Finley, the women’s rights attorney emphasizes a particularly troubling reality about the current
Supreme Court climate: Though women’s access to abortion and contraception are the most
immediate targets, future rulings could pave the way for further control on the premise of morals
or religion.
“It’s important for people to understand that it’s a matter of constitutional law. We tend to think
of the Constitution as doctrine,” Finley said. “The fact that we are discussing overruling it is
quite troubling. There are employers out there who would fire women for getting pregnant
outside of wedlock if the law said their religious liberties allowed them to do that.”
Terry Neese’s work quickly expanded far beyond affecting this sexist policy. She stayed true to
the original cause that motivated her to start a staffing business serving mostly women in her
early 20s: getting women employed and paid.
“Everyone has ideas and dreams. You’re 19 years old. What do you want to do?” Neese said.
“You can go do anything.”
After establishing the Afghanistan-based program, Neese expanded PEACE THROUGH
BUSINESS® to Rwanda, aiding women affected by the genocide to achieve financial freedom.
Over 800 women business owners have graduated from IEEW’s programs, who then went on to
employ 16,000 other women.
28
Yet even in the U.S., after generations of diligent advocacy, gender discrepancies still exist when
it comes to leadership and money. Women make up less than 25 percent of Congress and only
7.4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs in America. And still, over half a century after the Supreme
Court passed the Equal Pay Act, women on average make only 82 cents on the dollar compared
with white men.
23

Despite the gains since her early years fighting Congress in the U.S. and internationally, Neese
knows much work remains:
“I’m still advocating and working every day to make sure women are doing whatever we want in
this country.”

23
Hinchliffe, “Fortune 500.”
29

Behind the growing movement to add more women to history lessons
‘We have an obligation to correct this’

(iStock;Lily illustration)

Megan Botel
Sep. 4, 2020

The famous Norman Rockwell painting “The Problem We All Live With” depicts 6-year-old
Ruby Bridges, who is Black, on her way to an all-White public school in 1960 New Orleans.
Facing a threat of violence from unpictured White protesters, Bridges is escorted by four U.S.
marshals for protection. In the background, racist graffiti and smashed tomatoes line the wall.

When social studies teachers show this image to their classes, they say interpretations can vary.

30
“Some will focus on these White men protecting her,” said Robert Austin, the social studies
specialist at Utah’s State Board of Education. “Other students will say: ‘Wow, look at Ruby’s
courage. Look how she persevered against all odds.’”
24

This discrepancy, Austin said, depends on a student’s ingrained perception of what those of a
certain gender, race or socioeconomic class are capable of doing. And expanding this perception,
which in turn dictates how students view their own potential, largely falls on the role of the
educator: “Teachers are hungry for resources that enlarge and diversify the story of history,” he
said.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave
White women the right to vote. This, paired with the killing of George Floyd in police custody
and subsequent nationwide protests, is provoking a reassessment of institutional diversity and
inclusion standards across the nation.

“Having a role model with similar characteristics allows students to feel like they can do
important things,” said Daphna Oyserman, a professor of education and psychology at the
University of Southern California who published a book on the topic in 2015. “If there isn’t
anybody who looks like you in some meaningful way in roles of leadership or having some sort
of success, kids will think: ‘Who am I kidding? People like me can’t do this.’”
25

Still, research shows that women’s stories make up only 0.5 percent of recorded history. A report
by the National Women’s History Museum says that the status and experiences of women are

24
Austin, phone interview.
25
Oyserman, phone interview.
31
“not well integrated into U.S. state history standards,” and criticizes an overemphasis on
women’s domestic roles and the exclusion of women’s roles in leadership.

But this year has seen a new wave of activism to bring lesser-known women’s stories into history
and social studies education curriculums. Washington state’s program, Ahead of the Curve,
provides lesson plans for social studies classes highlighting the state’s pioneering women in
history. In Oregon, the League of Women Voters launched the Teacher’s Guide to Civics
Education, a comprehensive lesson plan focused on women’s suffrage history to show students
the importance of voting. Tennessee, Indiana, Massachusetts and Kentucky have launched
similar programs focused on exposing students to prominent but lesser-known women from their
states.

“It is absolutely necessary to have curricula that’s inclusive of all student groups,” said Morgan
Polikoff, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California. “Reform
starts with the next generation. This is how we promote systemic change.”
26

“Wanting diverse perspectives is so much more on people’s radar,” said Liz Wallace, the
editorial director at Gibbs Smith Education, a history and social studies textbook publisher.

In Utah, which also celebrates the 150th anniversary of the first vote cast by a woman this year,
the effort has been particularly significant. In 2017, the Salt Lake City-based nonprofit Better
Days 2020, which draws upon the two anniversaries to popularize women’s history in education,
partnered with the State Board of Education to create and develop history lessons that promote

26
Polikoff, phone interview.
32
women’s stories, particularly those of women of color. The group also successfully lobbied
Gibbs Smith to add several women’s stories into the new edition of the social studies textbook.

“Growing up, I wasn’t even aware of Utah’s role in the suffrage movement,” said Naomi
Watkins, the group’s education director. Watkins recalls reading biographies of American
women she had scrounged up in her local library when she was young. Once she finished that
limited selection of books, she remembers thinking: “Now what?”
27

Despite the state’s prominent role in women’s suffrage, the need for gender-inclusivity reform in
Utah is especially dire. For the third year in a row, Utah came up last in a study ranking each
state for women’s equality, based on markers like income disparity, political representation,
leadership roles and unemployment.
28

“We have an obligation to correct this,” Austin said. “Teachers want to make sure students are
engaged, and the way they become engaged is by seeing their own stories in the lessons taught.
It’s a constant struggle for representation.”

The push to add diverse and underrepresented voices to history and social studies education is
not new. In the 1970s, following groundbreaking research that displayed how underrepresented
women were in U.S. history textbooks, publishers printed guidelines on how to publish more
gender-inclusive material. At the same time, universities began to heavily fund women’s studies
programs, and Congress passed the Women’s Educational Equity Act.

27
Watkins, phone interview.
28
McCann, “Best & Worst States for Women’s Equality.”
33
“I saw my students, particularly the girls, transform through these lessons,” said Mackenzie
McFadden, a teacher at Burch Creek Elementary in Ogden, Utah, who is one of the 1,000
teachers who completed a training to help elementary and middle school educators incorporate
female-focused lessons. “The empowerment that comes from simply learning about important
women in history has been incredible.”
29

Some doubt the need for this type of reform, questioning its relevance now that girls outperform
boys in academic settings. But Oyserman, the education researcher and psychologist, emphasized
that inclusivity goes far beyond academic performance. Although girls thrive in academic
settings, gender discrepancies still very much exist when it comes to leadership: Women make
up less than 25 percent of Congress and 7.4 percent of Fortune 500 chief executives. And still,
over half a century after the Supreme Court passed the Equal Pay Act, women on average make
only 82 cents on the dollar compared with White men. (On average, Black women make 62 cents
on the dollar compared with White men, and Latinas make 54 cents.)

“When we switch from the academic setting to the workforce, the men who were
underperforming all along suddenly turn into the stars,” Oyserman said.

Austin says this is only the beginning of the work.

“We’re shifting our idea of what history education really means.”

29
McFadden, phone interview.
34

How Black women worked to secure Joe Biden's election as
president
Black women have been the spearhead of social justice movements throughout American history.

LaTosha Brown speaks at a drive-in rally and movie night held by Black Voters Matter Fund in
Detroit, Michigan, one of the stops for the #WeGotThePower bus tour. (Oct. 2020, credit: Dean
Anthony ll)

Megan Botel
Dec. 2, 2020
One hundred years after passage of the 19th Amendment, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris
honored Black American women who “so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy.”
35
About 90% of Black women voted for President-elect Joe Biden over Donald Trump, making
them Democrats’ most loyal bloc.
30
For the past five presidential cycles, they have shown up to
the polls at higher rates than any other group.
This year, experts say their nationwide voter mobilization efforts led to the historic turnout that
secured Biden’s victory and that of the first Black, female vice president in the nation's history.
But being the “backbone” of American democracy, an identity activists say is rooted in a history
of racial oppression and gendered disenfranchisement, comes at a cost.
“It is a tremendous, magnanimous burden to bear,” said Black Voters Matter Fund co-founder
LaTosha Brown. “There is a major price to pay there. While we are strong in the world — and I
consider myself powerful — I have felt this culture doesn’t give me the grace or space to be
weak, to be delicate.”
31

Black women have been the spearhead of social justice movements throughout American
history. Although largely ignored in history books until the late 20th century, Black women were
a driving force in the abolitionist movement in the mid 1800s.
Then, they led the fight to pass the Voting Rights Act in 1965, helping to abolish tactics of voter
suppression that targeted Black Americans.
Since the 1940s, after Recy Taylor spoke out against the white men who kidnapped and sexually
assaulted her, Black women have also led the charge in addressing sexual violence, paving the
way for the #MeToo movement.
“The biggest barriers in this country are rooted in racism and sexism,” Brown said. “Black
women sit at the intersection of that.”
As America’s most consistent voters carried on this legacy of organizing to a record number of
Black American voters this election, leaders in the movement reflect upon a history of gender

30
Ross, “Black Voters.”
31
Brown, phone interview.
36
and racial oppression, attributing much of their success as activists and organizers to the strength
and resilience borne from that shared lineage.
“Black women are acting at the intersection of so many different types of injustices that
particularly affect them and their children,” said Alaina Morgan, an African diaspora historian at
the University of Southern California.
32

“We never had the opportunity to be anything else but forward thinking survivors,” Brown said.
“If we were not, we could die, our families could die, our children could die. Part of the culture
of how we show up in the world is in response to our history.”
Brown, who sings soul music and is releasing her first album, Songs of the Souls of Black Folk,
later this year, says she finds solace from the strain of the constant fight for justice through her
art.
“If I didn’t have my own voice to soothe my tired soul, I don’t know what I would do,” she said.
“For Black women, womanhood was never about being delicate, or soft, or being kept.
Womanhood always meant work, and protecting your families, your communities.”
History drives activism
Black women’s hard history, the activist said, is part of what makes them successful organizers:
“There is something about our humanity. Out of this pain comes a deep, deep sense of empathy
and determination.”
“Black women are nurturers. We’ve been nurturers during slavery. We nurtured other children
that did not belong to us,” said Brittany Smalls, Black Voters Matter’s Pennsylvania state
coordinator. “It’s tiring, but I get my strength when I think about my family members, when I
think about my great grandmother who actually picked cotton.”
33

32
Morgan, phone interview.
33
Smalls, phone interview.
37
Since March, Black Voters Matter Fund has partnered with more than 600 grassroots
organizations to get-out-the-vote among the Black community in swing states and vulnerable
counties, providing supplies, funding and strategic guidance.
In Pennsylvania, Smalls saw the direct impact of her team’s efforts when officials finished
counting ballots in Philadelphia, which is 42% Black, and clinched the Biden-Harris victory.
“Women, but especially Black women, have a tendency to coalesce and rally around each other,”
Brown said. “I’ve never seen the level of collaboration within the way that Black organizations
worked together, even more than with President Obama.”
After hitting record numbers in 2004 and 2008, Black voter turnout fell nationwide for the first
time in two decades in 2016, a decline activists attributed to a common feeling of dejection in the
Black community.
34
Their determination this year to rally around causes especially important to
Black communities, like criminal justice and health care, turned the tide.
Work ongoing in Georgia
In Georgia, there was a 69% increase in voter turnout among women of color compared to 2016,
according to She the People.
“For every Stacy Abrams, there are hundreds of Black women supporting her,” said Dejuana
Thompson, founder of the Birmingham-based Black voter mobilization group Woke Vote.
“That’s just how we do it and how we’ve always done it.”
35

Woke Vote, which focuses on Black voter turnout in 12 key battleground cities, launched in
2017 in direct response to the election of President Trump, to provide a solution to the “profound
lack of resources and attention on Black voters,” Thomspon said.

34
Krogstad, “Black voter turnout.”
35
Thompson, phone interview.
38
In the two weeks preceding Election Day, Thompson partnered with Tamika Mallory and Linda
Sarsour, founders of the racial justice organization Until Freedom. Together, they launched the
State of Emergency Vote Tour to get-out-the-vote.
“It requires a certain level of trust,” said Thompson, citing the names of 20 women who her work
depends upon.
In August, Thompson said her organization’s goal was to engage 250,000 Black voters to
commit to participate in the November election. But through what Thompson described as
millions of phone calls, text messages, hundreds of thousands of individuals on the ground, along
with an unprecedented level of collaboration with other Black political activists, Woke Vote
engaged more than 1.2 million Black voters in this election cycle.
From now until January, Woke Vote and Black Voters Matter Fund will run and support
community engagement campaigns in Georgia's Senate runoff election, focused on those who
voted for the first time in the general election.
“When I look at movements before, there are so many unnamed Black women who were behind
them. There’s an intentionality now to name ourselves, to say this leadership is not coming from
some phantom place,” she said. “Even that is revolutionary.”

39
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract This project is a series of articles I wrote and published on various outlets about women and politics. The work explores the role of women in modern society at a time when the genders technically have equal rights but experience far different realities. ❧ When I joined the GroundTruth Project as a voting rights reporting fellow in June 2020, a pattern began to emerge: Nearly all the top voting rights mobilization efforts were run by women, and many were run by Black women. In interviews, it quickly became clear that out of a tumultuous and violent shared history, true activism is borne. I then broadened my reporting to capture how a shared past of gender and racial oppression has shaped the reality that women and women of color live today. ❧ I spoke to women in all corners of the U.S., and internationally as far as Afghanistan. In these conversations with women in such different circumstances, I heard strikingly similar themes—of fear, oppression, abuse, hope and grit. That tie was perhaps made even stronger at this particular moment in history by the shared experience of the global pandemic. ❧ Due to the virus, I reported most of these stories by phone, from my apartment in Los Angeles.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Botel, Megan Patricia (author)

Core Title Waking up to womanhood

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Publication Date 04/16/2021

Defense Date 04/15/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag #MeToo,feminism,OAI-PMH Harvest,Politics,rape,voting,Women

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Middlestadt, Alan (committee chair), Tolan, Sandy (committee member), Winston, Diane (committee member)

Creator Email botel@usc.edu,meganbotel@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-445216

Unique identifier UC11666728

Identifier etd-BotelMegan-9479.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-445216 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-BotelMegan-9479.pdf

Dmrecord 445216

Document Type Thesis

Rights Botel, Megan Patricia

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA