Beyond Gender
Juliette Magoun, ’09, got hooked on politics in high school. A New Hampshire native, Magoun was nominated to participate in the American Legion Girls State Program and quickly fell in love with the government processes they were imitating during the weeklong program. From campaigning to drafting resolutions and lobbying to get them passed, she enjoyed it all. Her enthusiasm showed, and she was one of two from her state to go on to the national level of the program in D.C.
“It got me into my major,” Magoun says of the experience. At least one of her majors, that is. Magoun carried a 21-credit load last semester to keep her on track with her two majors, one in political science and another in international studies. Not one to rest on her laurels, Magoun also has two minors, French and business. French was a natural choice for Magoun who, in addition to being a U.S. citizen, is a citizen of France like her mother. All of this is in addition to riding with the Penn State equestrian team.
With her sights set on eventually returning to Washington, Magoun leveraged some Penn State ties to get back to the nation’s capital, this time as an intern at the Pentagon. While at University Park her freshman year, Magoun learned of a Penn State alumnus working in the Department of Defense. Eager to make connections, she gave him a call. One thing led to another and in the summer of 2007 Magoun found herself in the sweltering heat of a D.C. summer—and loving it. As she became more entrenched in the political sphere, Mangoun developed a list of personal political icons, among them former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace. It was one of the highlights of her internship when she spotted him in a hallway and got up the courage to introduce herself and snap a picture with him.
Even more memorable, according to Magoun, were the regular Pentagon visits from wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. Magoun said the Pentagon staffers would line the halls of the building when the veterans visited, often greeting them with over thirty minutes of applause. For Magoun, those visits put all of the paper work, meetings, and long hours into perspective.
When asked about the experience of being a woman in the traditionally male-dominated world of the Pentagon, Magoun said she found being a woman more of an asset than a drawback, when she considered it at all. “Surprisingly, being a woman never factored into my thought process. If anything, being a woman makes you stand out more because it's a sea of men and a smaller portion of strong-headed women. If we look at the State Department and Ms. Rice, she is an extraordinary woman with a remarkable background, but in the end, what makes her fabulous is what she has done for this country, not whether or not she is a woman.”
Magoun carried her interest in politics over to her research project with Professor Frank Baumgartner, the Bruce R. Miller and Dean D. LaVigne Professor of Political Science. With his guidance, Magoun is compiling and updating an encyclopedia of national associations. She’s learned that everyone from goat breeders to nudists have somebody representing them in the nation’s capital. She knows understanding the breadth and depth of special interest groups in D.C. will serve her well when she moves toward working in the lobbyist-filled waters along the Potomac.
Before settling into a job, though, Magoun has some other plans first. Most immediately she will spend this semester studying abroad in South Africa. While there, she will take classes, continue her research project via the Internet, and dedicate a lot of time to exploration. Before she left she already had acquired some fifteen books on the country and was excited to check out the many elements that make South Africa unique—Table Rock, penguins and its shores along two oceans, the Atlantic and the Indian.
When she returns, Magoun’s last year in University Park will be filled with preparations for graduation and law school applications. She knows taking that law degree into the public sector may not reap the same financial rewards as her private-sector colleagues but she is reminded of people she met this summer, who were often at their desks from 5:30 in the morning to at least 5:30 at night. “They love their country more than they love money,” she noted.
Regardless of the degree of love, Mangoun acknowledges that inequities still exist in the pay women make versus men. “Women may make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes, but the beauty in that fact is that it gives me motivation to make that 77 cents turn into $3 for every one dollar a man makes,” she said.
Just add that to her to-do list.