Full Frontal Feminism_ A Young Women's Guide to Why Feminism Matters - Jessica Valenti [70]
Dole, shockingly, received more “personal” coverage (comments about her personality and the way she dressed) than any of the male candidates. Thirty-five percent of the paragraphs on Dole were personal, compared to 27 percent for Bush, 22 percent for McCain, and 16.5 percent for Forbes.6
Shit, even when The New York Times covered a dinner honoring women in the government, they ran it in the “Styles” section with a pink purse graphic!
Some women have found, well, interesting ways to fight back. One 2006 Alabama gubernatorial candidate, Loretta Nall, was pissed when a local newspaper ran a picture of her cleavage and went on to comment on her breasts. So Nall countered (quite sassily, I might add), “I don’t approve of political reporters who are titillated by my breasts while ignoring the serious issues which affect a whole lot of poor and disenfranchised Alabamians,”7 and went on to create a new campaign slogan: “More of these boobs [hers] and less of these boobs [incumbent politicians]!!” Hysterical.
But of course, it’s not just appearance that women politicians are attacked for. It’s their personalities. The most common insults? “Ballbuster,” “bitch,” and the like. Because clearly, all women who work in politics are “unfeminine” and annoying. Never mind that perseverance and an ability to get shit done are generally thought of as good qualities in male politicians. But as a woman, you can’t win. ’Cause if you’re not a “bitch,” you’re too “soft” for politics.
Conservative columnist John Podhoretz actually tried to argue on Fox News that calling Hillary Clinton a bitch in his book Can She Be Stopped? was actually a compliment. You know, because it means she’s like a guy.
❂ I use the B-word to describe her and say that that is a virtue as the first woman presidential, you know, possibility. . . . The first woman president has to be somebody who has qualities that we commonly associate with being unfeminine.8
Right, ’cause feminine and, you know, someone who is a woman would be unfit for the presidency.
By the way, he also called her “flat” and “unwomanly.”9 Sweet.
This kind of sexist stereotyping about who is fit for power is pretty (depressingly) common. Sometimes folks even try to use “positive” stereotypes.
A 2006 New York Times article reported that the Democratic party was looking to run women candidates as outsiders against a “culture of corruption.” Because women are never corrupt, apparently.
Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in the piece, “In an environment where people are disgusted with politics in general, who represents clean and change? Women.”10 We’re so pure and good and all. Barf.
What’s truly sad is that women candidates probably do have a better chance of winning elections based on what people think of their personal lives over their actual politics. As my coblogger Ann Friedman wrote about the article, “The public loves women politicians whose personal lives adhere to the stereotypes (devoted wife, mother, etc.), but has a much harder time stomaching women whose political positions are actually pro-woman.”11 No joke.
But that’s not to say that women aren’t kicking ass when they are in political office.
Some Great Women Politicians
Okay, getting more women in office is definitely important. But not just anyone. Let’s get some pro-women women in there.
SOME COOL STUFF THAT WOMEN POLITICIANS HAVE DONE:
New York Representative Carolyn Maloney introduced legislation that would regulate the advertisement of “crisis