Scholars and pundits alike have spent more than a little time speculating about why Hillary Clinton lost the presidency to Donald Trump in 2016. Their conclusions may differ, but few would disagree that Clinton’s nomination by a major party changed the political landscape in significant ways—nor that the results of the 2016 election provoked a large number of women to run for office at all levels of government. The genie is out of the bottle.

In this context, the authors of Madam President? critically analyze the barriers facing women on the road to the White House—from gender stereotyping to biased media coverage, the conflation of masculinity and the presidency, gendered conceptions of leadership, and more.