Plenty Ladylike: A Memoir by Claire McCaskill
Plenty Ladylike: A Memoir by Claire McCaskill
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: August 11, 2015
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
The female senator from Missouri shares her inspiring story of embracing her ambition, surviving sexist slings, making a family, losing a husband, outsmarting her enemies—and finding joy along the way.Claire McCaskill grew up in a political family, but not at a time that welcomed women with big plans. She earned a law degree and paid her way through school by working as a waitress. By 1982 Claire had set her sights on the Missouri House of Representatives. Typically, one voter whose door she knocked on said: “You’re too young; your hair is too long; you’re a girl….Go find yourself a husband.” That door was slammed in her face, but Claire always kept pushing—first as a prosecutor of arsonists and rapists and then all the way to the door of a cabal of Missouri politicians who had secret meetings to block her legislation.
In this candid, lively, and forthright memoir, Senator McCaskill describes her uphill battle to become who she is today, from her failed first marriage to a Kansas City car dealer—the father of her three children—to her current marriage to a Missouri businessman whom she describes as “a life partner.” She depicts her ups and downs with the Clintons, her long-shot reelection as senator after secretly helping to nominate a right-wing extremist as her opponent, and the fun of joining the growing bipartisan sisterhood in the Senate.
From the day she was elected homecoming queen in high school, Claire has loved politics and winning. Her memoir is unconventional: unsparing in its honesty, full of sharp humor and practical wisdom, and rousing in its defense of female ambition.
I chose this book because Claire McCaskill is my senator and I was interested in learning more about her personal life and political career. At just under three hundred pages, she just hits the highlights which was perfect for me. It made it a quick read and kept it entertaining. Most of it is about her struggle to be accepted in the good old boy network that’s so prevalent in politics at both the local and national levels.
I loved that Claire was honest about her almost House of Cards level of scheming to set Todd Akin up as her opponent in her most recent Senate race. You may recall that that he’s the candidate who said, ““If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” – meaning that if a woman is raped, she can’t get pregnant. Claire wanted him to be her opponent because she knew she could beat him easily after he made that comment. She’s also not afraid to admit that she’s made mistakes along the way and to write about them specifically, like when she said she wouldn’t let her daughters near Bill Clinton, which of course Hillary was not happy about. It’s refreshing to read such unflinching honesty from a politician.
If you are interested in politics and especially women’s role in them, then you’ll like this book even if you don’t live in Missouri.
(I received a complementary review copy of this book.)
