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All political candidates make strategic choices about how to present themselves to voters but not all candidates have to \u201cweigh decisions about their self-presentation alongside stereotypical tropes, culture norms that denigrate Blackness, and European beauty standards, in addition to the historical legacies of racism, colorism, sexism, and heteropatriarchy.\u201d\xa0Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites\xa0(Oxford UP, 2021)\xa0interrogates the \u201ceveryday politicization of Black women\u2019s bodies and its ramifications for politics.\u201d Hair is not simply hair.\nDrs. Brown and Lemi use a wide-range of qualitative and quantitative methods, including focus groups with Black women candidates and elected officials to argue that \u201cBlack women's political experience and the way that voters evaluate them is shaped overtly by their skin tone and hair texture, with hair being a particular point of scrutiny.\u201d\xa0Sister Style\xa0explores \u201cwhat the politics of appearance for Black women means for Black women politicians and Black voters, and how expectations about self-presentation differ for Black women versus Black men, White men, and White women.\u201d For many black women in politics, racist and sexist cultural ideas have been used to \u201cdemean and fetishize\u201d them based on their physical appearance. They are oftentimes pressured into changing their appearance to look more like their white female counterparts. But Brown and Lemi highlight the agency of Black women candidates and the book reconceptualizes how \u201cBlack women political elites are thought about, assessed, measured, and evaluated.\u201d\nThe book is organized around several questions. What are the origins of the contemporary focus on Black women\u2019s bodies in public life? How do Black women politicians make sense of the politics of appearance? Is there a phenotypic profile in who which most Black women politicians fit? How do voters process the appearances of Black women candidates?\nDr. Nadia Brown\xa0is an Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Purdue University. Beginning in July 2021, Dr. Brown will be a professor of Government and director of the Women\u2019s and Gender Studies program at Georgetown University. Dr. Brown is also the author of\xa0Sisters in the\xa0Statehouse: Black Women and Legislative Decision Making\xa0(Oxford, 2014) and editor of three books:\xa0Distinct Identities: Minority Women in U.S. Politics\xa0(Routledge, 2016),\xa0Body Politics\xa0(Routledge, 2019), and\xa0Me Too Political Science\xa0(Routledge, 2019). She edits\xa0Politics, Groups, and Identities\xa0and is a founding board member of @WomenAlsoKnowStuff. Her most recent public facing publication is \u201cHere\u2019s how to teach Black Lives Matter: We\u2019ve developed a short course\u201d Washington Post\u2019s Monkey Cage with Ray Block, Jr. and Christopher Stout.\nDr. Danielle Casarez Lemi\xa0is a Tower Center Fellow at the John G. Tower Center for Political Science at Southern Methodist University. Her specialization is representation in American politics with a focus on gender, race, and identity. Her research has appeared in\xa0Politics, Groups, and Identities, Du Bois Review,\xa0Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics,\xa0British Journal of Political Science,\xa0and\xa0Perspectives on Politics.\nDaniella Campos assisted with this podcast.\nSusan Liebell\xa0is an associate professor of political science at Saint\xa0Joseph\u2019s University in Philadelphia.\xa0Why Diehard Originalists\xa0Aren\u2019t Really Originalists\xa0appeared in the Washington Post\u2019s Monkey Cage and\xa0\u201cSensitive Places: Originalism, Gender, and the Myth\xa0Self-Defense in\xa0District of Columbia v. Heller\u201d\xa0can be found in July 2021\u2019s\xa0Polity.\xa0Email her comments at\xa0sliebell@sju.edu\xa0or tweet to\xa0@SusanLiebell.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies