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Monica Potts

Monica Potts is a senior writer for The American Prospect. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Connecticut Post and the Stamford Advocate. She also blogs at PostBourgie.

Recent Articles

Why Aren't You Married Yet?

Apparently, I'm responsible for the jerks I've dated.

Monica PottsApr 04, 2011
(Eric Palma)

At a March luncheon celebrating the release of the new book Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys, it wasn't long before things got really personal.

"Before [today], the fact is that primarily, a 20-year-old woman would have been a wife and a mother," author Kay Hymowitz told the crowd of about 100 for the Manhattan Institute event in New York City. Men would have been mowing lawns and changing the oil in their family sedans instead of playing video games and watching television. In previous decades, adults in their 20s and 30s were too busy with real life for such empty entertainment, Hymowitz says. "They didn't live with roommates in Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Dupont Circle in D.C."

Green and Gold

Why environmental policies and healthy bottom lines go together

Monica PottsApr 04, 2011

Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy, By Seth Fletcher, Hill and Wang, 272 pages, $26.00

Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change, By L. Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen, Hill and Wang, 400 pages, $26.00

The Burdens of Female Politicians

Ferraro, like all female politicians, inevitably disappointed progressives, but that's just because we have too few women on the field.

Monica PottsMar 28, 2011
Michele Bachmann speaks at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference. (Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

In the nearly 30 years since Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to grace a major party's presidential ticket, female politicians became less of a novelty. Ferraro's selection as Walter Mondale's vice-presidential candidate in 1984 was replicated by Sarah Palin on the Republican side in 2008, the same year Hillary Clinton almost became the Democratic nominee for the top spot. Pundits declared 1992, when more female senators were elected than ever before, "the year of the woman." And 31 women have served as governors since Ella Grasso became the first woman who wasn't the wife or widow of a politician to be elected governor -- of Connecticut in 1974.

Is the Grass Really Greener in Rural America?

Liberal urbanites complain that politicians pay too much attention to rural America, but the truth is we hardly do at all.

Monica PottsMar 23, 2011
(Flickr/Scott Butner)

Fred Stokes is a former cattle rancher who now runs a small family farm, mostly for his own use, in Mississippi. Stokes' county, Kemper, has only about 10,000 people, and Stokes, who is 76, says his small town has been shrinking; all the farmers are aging, most of the agricultural land is owned by one company, and it's almost impossibly hard to make a living as a rural American. "I'm not one of those who wants to reconstruct the Little House on the Prairie and be overly romantic," he says. "Mainly, I see the landscape being restructured in a very negative way."

The Serfs of Arkansas

Immigrant farmers are flocking to the poultry industry -- only to become 21st-century sharecroppers for companies like Tyson.

Monica PottsMar 05, 2011
(AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

Shane Tawr doesn't remember exactly why he first decided to try his hand at chicken farming. Tawr had a government job in Milwaukee but wanted relief from the city's bustle. He decided in 2004 to head down to the Ozarks, buy a chicken farm, and work for himself, just as many of his Hmong ancestors had done in Laos.

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