"On Second Thought" For Wednesday, November 7, 2018

It’s been a long, hard-fought race for Georgia governor, and it’s not over yet.  Republican Brian Kemp has not declared victory, and Democrat Stacey Abrams has not yet conceded. GPB’s Ross Terrell and Stephen Fowler stopped by “On Second Thought” to explain what’s next for this election. On Election Night, Ross was at Kemp’s watch party, and Stephen was with Abrams."On Second Thought" for Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018.

A record number of Georgians cast votes in the midterm elections this year. Contested races went into the early hours of the morning, and the contest for governor failed to produce an immediate winner. GPB's Bill Nigut and the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Maya Prabhu stopped by "On Second Thought" to give results and analysis of down-ballot races.

2018 is being called “The Year of the Woman,” and the midterm elections are delivering on that name. More than 100 women are newly elected to U.S. Congress.  That’s a new record.  Since most of the incoming women in the U.S. House of Representatives are Democrats, this female wave also has helped flip control of that chamber. The results come as the #MeToo movement encourages women to increasingly speak out against sexual harassment and discrimination.

This isn’t the first so-called “Year of the Woman.”  1992 earned the same name after Anita Hill accused now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, and the United Nations called 1975 the International Women’s Year. 

So, will this “Year of the Woman” create lasting change that makes future feminist movements moot? Georgia Tech history professor Sherie Randolph and University of Georgia employment law professor Dawn Bennett-Alexander tried to answer that question.

Asked if U.S. culture is really ready for a "Year of the Woman," Bennett-Alexander said, "I think the last election, 2016, was a really good example of the answer of that being 'no.'"  She says society can't seem to shake its problems with descrimination.