The Arena

In 1920, American women secured the right to vote. Tennessee was the 36th state necessary to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Amendment passed by only one vote in the state house. Despite a hundred years of women's suffrage, there has never been a woman governor of Tennessee.

The portraits of 46 men who served as mayor hang on the wall in the Memphis city hall. To date, a female has never been elected mayor of Memphis.

The Arena: One Woman's Story shares author Carol J. Chumney's experiences as a woman in the political arena. In 1991, she gained election to the Tennessee state legislature at the age of 29. She passed landmark childcare reform, as reported in TIME magazine and the New York Times. As a veteran state legislator, experienced trial attorney, and Memphis city councilwoman, in 2007, she came within seven points of being elected the first woman mayor of Memphis. She went on to expose election security vulnerabilities and take the fight for reform to the U.S. Congress and U.S. Supreme Court.

The glass ceiling is the invisible barrier that keeps women from attaining higher positions despite their qualifications or achievements. Chumney's story is an inside look at local and state politics that exposes this barrier. As she says, "you first have to see it to defeat it."