Short Synopsis
Salon.com reporter Rebecca Traister provides a social commentary on how the 2008 presidential election brought issues concerning women, power, sexism, and feminism to the fore.

Full Synopsis
In the last two years, the United States—its history, assumptions, prejudices, and vocabulary—have all cracked open. A woman won a state presidential primary contest (quite a few of them, actually) for the first time in this country's history. Less than a year later, a vice-presidential candidate concluded her appearance in a national debate and immediately reached for her newborn baby. A few months after that, an African American woman moved into the White House not as an employee but as the First Lady. She is only the third First Lady in American history to have a postgraduate degree, and for most of her marriage, she has out-earned her husband.

In Big Girls Don't Cry, Rebecca Traister, a Salon.com columnist whose election coverage garnered much attention, makes sense of this moment in American history, in which women broke barriers and changed the country's narrative in completely unexpected ways: How did the volatile, exhilarating events of the 2008 election fit together? What lessons can be learned from these great political upheavals about women, politics, and the media?

In an utterly engaging, razor-sharp narrative interlaced with her first-person account of being a young woman navigating this turbulent and exciting time, Traister explores how—thanks to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, and the history-making work and visibility of Michelle Obama, Tina Fey, Rachel Maddow, Katie Couric, and others—women began to emerge stronger than ever on the national stage.

"A passionate, visionary and very personal account of the cultural ferment that accompanied the election of '08." ---The New York Times

"It is a raw and brave memoir of a journalist who discovered that all is not well for women in America, and a description of how she and other young women are laying claim to their rightful place in the fight." ---Washington Post

"A genuinely fun and provocative read." ---Boston Globe

"Potter maintains a solid presentation, providing inflection and tone but not outright impersonations of the wide pool of candidates. Her pacing and emphasis throughout the more detailed passages also make listening highly enjoyable." ---AudioFile

"Traister does a fine job in showing that progress does not proceed in straight lines, and, sometimes, it's the unlikeliest of individuals who initiate real change." ---Publishers Weekly

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