This image is the cover for the book Fierce and Fearless, Sexual Cultures

Fierce and Fearless, Sexual Cultures

A biography of the Hawaiian legislator who was the first woman of color and first Asian American woman in the U.S. Congress, and the champion of Title IX.


Patsy Takemoto Mink was the first woman of color and the first Asian American woman elected to Congress. Fierce and Fearless is the first biography of this remarkable woman, who first won election to Congress in 1964 and went on to serve in the House for twenty-four years, her final term ending with her death in 2002. Mink was an advocate for girls and women, best known for her work shepherding and defending Title IX, the legislation that changed the face of education in America, making it possible for girls and women to participate in school sports, and in education more broadly, at the same level as boys and men.

In Fierce and Fearless, Mink’s life is wonderfully chronicled by eminent historian Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Gwendolyn Mink, Patsy’s daughter, a noted political science scholar and first-hand witness to the many political struggles that her mother had to overcome. Featuring family anecdotes, vignettes, and photographs, this book offers new insight into who Mink was, and the progressive principles that fueled her mission. Wu and Mink provide readers with an up-close understanding of her life as a third-generation Japanese American from Hawaii―from her childhood on Maui to her decades-long career in the House, working with noted legislators like Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, and Nancy Pelosi. They follow the evolution of her politics, including her advocacy for race, gender, and class equality and her work to promote peace and environmental justice.

Fierce and Fearless provides vivid details of how Patsy Takemoto Mink changed the future of American politics. Celebrating the life and legacy of a woman, activist, and politician ahead of her time, this book illuminates the life of a trailblazing icon who made history.

“Every girl in Little League, every woman playing college sports, and every parent―including Michelle and myself―who watches their daughter on a field or in the classroom is forever grateful to the late Patsy Takemoto Mink.”―President Barack Obama, on posthumously awarding Mink the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014

2023 Mary Nickliss Prize in U.S. Women’s and/or Gender History Winner

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Gwendolyn Mink

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu (Author)
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is Professor of Asian American Studies and Director of the Humanities Center at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Doctor Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: The Life of a Wartime Celebrity and Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era.

Gwendolyn Mink (Author)
Gwendolyn Mink was Professor of Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Smith College. She is the author and editor of many books, most recently coauthor of Ensuring Poverty: Welfare Reform in Feminist Perspective.

New York University Press