Your likability score
Maggie Astor at the Times zooms in close on sexism in electoral politics.
Few Americans acknowledge they would hesitate to vote for a woman for president — but they don’t have to, according to researchers and experts on politics and women and extensive research on double standards in campaigns. Reluctance to support female candidates is apparent in the language that voters frequently use to describe men and women running for office; in the qualities that voters say they seek; and in the perceived flaws that voters say they are willing or unwilling to overlook in candidates.
And this describes all of us. The drip drip drip of background sexism does its work on all of us, no matter how feminist we may be in the front parts of our brains. Men are coached to have contempt for women and women are coached to have contempt for women. Totally fair and equal, see??!
There’s the “likability” issue for one. Men can get away with being seen as not likable; women cannot. Furthermore any woman presumptuous enough to run for president is automatically not likable. BZZZZZZZT game over.
Women also tend to be viewed as unlikable based on their ambition. Harvard researchers found in 2010 that voters regarded “power-seeking” women with contempt and anger, but saw power-seeking men as stronger and more competent. There is often some implication of unscrupulousness in descriptions of female candidates as “ambitious” — an adjective that could apply to any person running for president but is rarely used to disparage men.
Well, you know, it’s like beards or neckties – they look good on men, and ambitious on women.
The qualities voters tend to expect from politicians — like strength, toughness and valor — are popularly associated with masculinity. This often means that from the moment a man steps onto the campaign trail, he benefits from a basic assumption that he is qualified to run, while a woman “has to work twice as hard to show that she’s qualified,” Ms. Hunter said.
And that one is really hard to overcome. I think on some level we sort of need, or think we need, half of humanity to be more nurturing than the other half, and probably, correspondingly, half to be more tough than the other half. It could be different if we could start from scratch, maybe, but starting from scratch isn’t an option. I wonder – I don’t think I’ve thought of this before – if it’s that much more difficult for the US to elect a woman at the top because since WW2 we’ve been the military top dog.
For many years, female candidates tried to adopt the characteristics voters wanted to see — to act, stereotypically speaking, like men. This worked for some but also brought pitfalls. For one thing, it did not challenge the premise that masculinity is better suited for leadership. It also opened women up to a familiar double standard: A man who speaks authoritatively might be confident or opinionated, while a woman who does the same is arrogant or lecturing. Most pressingly, it created a backlash among some voters who saw women acting “like men” and deemed them inauthentic.
Quite. It’s lose-lose no matter what direction you turn your gaze.
Nichole M. Bauer, an assistant professor of political communication at Louisiana State University, found that when women played up stereotypically masculine qualities, voters — regardless of party — rated them better in terms of leadership ability, but voters in the opposing party rated them significantly lower in terms of likability. There was no similar backlash to male candidates who defied gender stereotypes.
Dr. Bauer said that in all her research, she had found no way for women to win the support of voters in the opposing party. It’s a basic psychological phenomenon, she said: If a Republican starts out disliking a Democratic woman, or vice versa, “they’ll use gender stereotypes about women to maintain that perceived negative relationship” no matter what the woman does.
The Times piece ends on an up note, saying maybe with six women running for president maybe things will improve. Me, I’ve succeeded in depressing myself.
H/t Screechy
I do have to admit, I have no likelihood of voting for Republican women; but I have no likelihood of voting for Republican men, either. Right now it has nothing to do with gender for me. As far as I’m concerned, any candidate that continues to support the Republicans cannot be considered a worthy candidate for me no matter what their beliefs, because they are propping up the party that is doing so much nasty.
On the other hand, I have liked several of the Democratic women (not liked as in likeable necessarily, but liked as in as a qualified candidate). Nonetheless, I occasionally find myself recoiling at something a woman is doing that I have seen in numerous men without that reaction. I think we can work on it, and get past it, if we are willing to notice it and take time with it; I do that, and hopefully some day all those shards of anti-woman glass that were planted in my brain will have been rooted out and will cease to cause infections. Until then? I just have to maintain eternal vigilance.
And I have an opposite bias, too. I tend to find those women who exhibit traditional female characteristics while being a public woman to be…annoying. I don’t trust that. I have some traditional characteristics, but I do not usually flaunt them; I just accept them as part of who I am, whether from culture or nature. But then, I’m not a public figure, so maybe I would do differently if I were.
The list of women heads of government and/or heads of state makes interesting reading, going back to Elena Stasova 1917-1919 in the Soviet Union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elected_and_appointed_female_heads_of_state_and_government
The absolutely appalling sexism I’ve seen displayed toward our two elected female Prime Ministers (Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern) is frankly stomach churning. It has to be said that while most has come from supporters of the National Party (Conservatives), some pretty rank stuff has come from supposedly middle class liberal males as well (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10119834). I’ve never seen such pointlessly vicious stuff directed at male NZ politicians.
Rob: see Julia Gillard
After the way Hillary Clinton was treated, I thought no woman would be game to throw her hat into the ring for Dem nominee for President. I’m inspired that Harris, Gillibrand and Warren are stepping forward.
The same things are being said about them – unlikeable, ambitious – but I think it’s heartening that the misogyny is being named. Nate Silver saying “I wonder what factor caused dislike of HRC, someone should study that” was incredibly depressing – talk about ignoring the blindingly obvious.
The misogyny is always going to be there.
And there are always going to be people denying it’s there.
Learie, yes Gillard copped it bad, as did Hillary and many others. I just quoted examples from close to home.
Iknklast, oh yes. That we can guarantee. In fact, the one of the supposedly middle class liberal male’s I alluded to above ( a Member of Parliament and a Cabinet Minister at that) made reference to women having won the war so they could stop going on about it AND referred to his female Cabinet colleagues and Prime Minister as “front bums” in the same interview.
In my opinion, power should never be given to anyone who seeks it.
Consider this: if I was in the habit of hanging around court houses, urging all and sundry to appoint me to a jury, preferably one of my own choosing, but any jury would be better than none, I would be rapidly told where to go. Maybe they would call the cops. And rightly so.
But that is what that particular breed of atypical people we call politicians do as a matter of routine. Which is why one such, who went by the name of Churchill, called the Westminster system of representative government something like “the least-worst system of government ever devised.”
It is not surprising therefore if the power-seekers contain more than a representative sample of misogynists, racists etc etc.
And, equally pernicious, there will always be people who accept it and believe that, because they accept it (and perhaps actively decry it), they are personally somehow inoculated against its effects.