“Southern women still achieve firsts that have long been secured by women in other regions.”

Ah, the flower of southern womanhood: gracious, lovely, and charming. Many features of southern culture have changed greatly over time. In one way, though, the South retains its distinctiveness: it remains the region of the country least hospitable to the election of women to office. The reasons for this are intricately, and inextricably, bound to those notions of southern womanhood.