Nevertheless, Sexism Persisted.
It is international women’s month, which always makes me think about the progress we have made and have yet to make for gender equality. I am especially attuned to this topic, given the recent events unfolding in the Democratic Party’s primary elections. I was hoping things would be different this time - that a woman could possibly, just possibly, make it to the White House. But despite the Democratic Party increasingly claiming a progressive identity, Democrats can by no means lay claim to “enlightened” gender politics. Given what we have witnessed over the last year, sexism is clearly still very much embedded in every part of the political process.
In this election, what became clear was that no matter how hard women worked to demonstrate competence, ultimately women don’t control their own narrative. Our concern over what other people think of women matters more than even what we think, and more than women’s own reality.
Women already have a hard enough time convincing the public they are competent. In this political race, where competition was high, and women needed to demonstrate both sufficient toughness to beat Trump and boundless passion to galvanize the left, the gendered expectation of women to be both likable and competent was a near impossible goal - Especially challenging given that ambitious, competitive women are often seen as threatening and angry women lose our respect. Klobuchar struggled to persuade people she was not boring; Warren fought against being perceived as irritatingly schoolmarmish and aloof. For Women of Color, this likeability trap is compounded - Kamala Harris never escaped early media characterizations of her as “grating and unlikable.”
But even when women do achieve that fragile balance between demonstrated competence and tolerable personality, we still doubt their ability. Despite stating that we wanted women (even specific women) to succeed, we voted for men. Senator Elizabeth Warren was an exceptionally strong candidate - she had all the right qualities including a sharp wit, years of experience, an upbeat attitude, and a plan for everything. We watched her effectively end Michael Bloomberg’s run in just a few minutes on the debate stage. And yet, soon the question of “electability” came up & people began asking whether a woman could beat Donald Trump in today’s society. People said they wanted to vote for her, but were afraid others would not because they were sexist. More important than the narrative that women carefully built for themselves, was the narrative that others built for them.
That fabricated narrative then affected how we further controlled women candidates’ narrative and decisions. Following the toxic questioning of “electibility,” there were calls for Warren to step down before Super Tuesday so that other, male, candidates could make more headway. Just as patronizing were the appeals to friends and strangers alike to not vote for the “losing” candidate because it would be “dumb,” or “irresponsible.” This is not surprising - women are expected to be team-players and self-sacrifice for the greater good, because they are supportive and communal. Men are expected to forge ahead, even when they have no ground to stand on, for that is bravery. Expecting women to conform to expectations is another way to impede women’s ability to make their own decisions, and thus demonstrate competence, effectively a double bind.
The media also had a hand in controlling womens’ narrative about their ability. All the leading women candidates - Warren, Klobuchar, and Harris - were effectively invisible compared to the men - that is until negative news popped up for their campaign. Tracking on media mentions of male candidates by FiveThirtyEight were consistently higher than women’s despite similar polling & fundraising numbers. This pattern is consistent with research that women have to work harder to be taken seriously and are also more easily penalized for mistakes. Again, this is compounded for Women of Color. A 2012 study found that when Black women leaders made mistakes on the job, they were penalized more severely than White women leaders. Senator Harris’s early exit from the race, despite outpolling Bloomberg, likely stemmed in part from media “misogynoir” & sensationalist representation of her campaign mistakes.
One would think that calling out sexism would be the start of women controlling their own narratives. But women are rewarded for accepting, conforming to, and maintaining the patriarchal status quo and punished if they do not. As Warren mentioned during her announcement that she was ending her campaign “ If you say yeah, there was sexism in this race, everyone says, 'Whiner.' And if you say no, there was no sexism, about a bazillion women think, 'What planet do you live on?” It’s true - the first rule of sexism is that you don’t talk about sexism if you want to be invited back to the party.
In times of anxiety, it is easy to default to patronizing power dynamics wherein women, no matter how competent, able, and experienced, are not to be trusted with their own narrative. But in order to dismantle sexism and elect a woman president, we have to stop allowing perceptions of women to be controlled by others. As long as we keep prioritizing other people’s opinions over women’s actual demonstrated competence, Warren will not be the last woman to fall prey to pluralistic ignorance. We will find ourselves back exactly where we started, and where we still persist today - with septuagenarian white men who get to call the shots.