Here is a partial list of the things Kamala Harris has had to overcome as she runs for president:
- She’s not likable enough.
- She’s not strong enough.
- She’s not qualified.
- She’s not trustworthy.
- She wouldn’t be respected by male leaders of foreign countries.
- She’s too emotional.
- She’s too hormonal (yes, even at 60).
- She’s not smart enough.
- She laughs too much, too loudly.
- She dances in public.
- She wouldn’t represent everyone.
- She doesn’t have (biological) children.
- She’s a diversity candidate.
And: She doesn’t look presidential.
If the list seems familiar, that’s because the obstacles Harris faces are nearly identical to those that confronted Hillary Clinton when she was the Democratic nominee eight years ago. They’re similar to the attacks that have challenged women who have competed for each party’s presidential nomination as well as those who have run for governor, Congress and other offices. Sometimes there’s a twist. For instance, when Sarah Palin was the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2008, men and women alike questioned whether, as the mother of five, she would have time to do the job.
Sexism at its finest.
Here is a list of the gender-based challenges the 45 male presidents and their male competitors (including those with young children) have had to overcome:
Even Donald Trump—who arguably is not likable to a good many people, who is not respected by a percentage of world leaders (or some of his own former generals and advisers), who doesn’t represent everyone (women who want abortion rights, to name one group), who has danced (or, at least, swayed) publicly, who consistently lies, whose cognitive abilities have come into question and whose behavior is notably unpresidential—has to jump through fewer hoops than Harris.
Being a man will do that for you.
Sure, some individual male candidates have had to surmount singular hurdles as they sought the highest office in the land. John F. Kennedy, running to be the first Catholic president, had to convince Protestant voters he wouldn’t be beholden to the pope. Barack Obama, running to be the first Black president, had to make white voters “comfortable,” in part by distancing himself from the divisive comments of his former minister. In other words, Kennedy and Obama had to overcome who they were, not what they had accomplished or stood for.
So it is with female candidates. Doubly so for women of color.
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said she has heard all kinds of sexist and racist insinuations from voters this year.
“People (are) asking things like, can she handle the job? I mean, they use coded language, right? Can she handle the job? Is she going to be able to handle foreign affairs? Will the men respect her?” Lake said. “How are we going to do foreign affairs when men in other countries won’t even shake her hand?”
The questions are even more pervasive this year than they were when Clinton ran in 2016, she said. “It’s different because Hillary was much better known than Harris, and she was seen as very seasoned,” Lake told me. “But you still had this stuff about, ‘I don’t like her laugh. I don’t like her. I just don’t like her. There’s just something about her I don’t like.’ And it’s like, could it be that she’s a woman?“
Kristina Wilfore, co-founder of #ShePersisted, which works to address gendered disinformation about women in politics, says that globally, sexism often is employed by would-be authoritarian leaders to undermine women’s leadership. Attacks tend to fall into one of four buckets, she said: “a woman being unqualified, untrustable, unlikable, uncontrollable.”
“Those are the main pieces in forms of attack, because they’re more effective when they focus in that way of trying to undermine voting behavior toward women,” Wilfore told me. “It’s basically qualifications, likability, control and social acceptance.”
Clinton faced the challenge head on, campaigning as the woman who could finally break the “highest, hardest glass ceiling.” That didn’t work, even though Clinton did win the popular vote. Many voters indicated that they were willing to vote for a woman for president, just not that woman. Harris, the first female vice president, has tried a different tack. Rather than casting herself as a pioneering ceiling-smasher, she has deftly addressed the inherent biases she faces as both a woman and a woman of color without so much as acknowledging that they’re a problem.
Harris has dismissed Trump’s racist, sexist remarks as coming from the “same old tired playbook”—and, therefore, not worth her time. Instead of engaging with misogynistic comments of Trump or his running mate, JD Vance (he of the “childless cat ladies” slur), she has chosen to craftily knock down the stereotypes one by one.
When she delivered her “closing argument” last week on Washington’s Ellipse, Harris stood on the ground from which Trump incited insurrectionists and offered a sharp contrast with her opponent in both style and vision. She cast herself as a unifying candidate who would seek common ground and represent and listen to all Americans. With her back to the White House so that voters could envision her there, she chose words intended to demonstrate that she was strong, wise, clear-headed, determined, passionate and caring as she vowed to protect workers, reduce child poverty, cap the cost of medications, work to restore abortion rights, stop illegal immigration and maintain the “strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”
With one powerful speech delivered before a crowd of some 75,000 on a balmy October night, Harris tried to demonstrate that she is likable, strong, qualified, trustworthy, respected, even-keeled, smart, inclusive and prepared.
In other words: presidential.
This article was produced in collaboration with The Fuller Project, a journalism nonprofit that reports on global issues affecting women.
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