Do the names Victoria Woodhull or Shirley Chisholm ring a bell when you hear them? If you’re like most, then probably not. They should ring the same bells as the names Hilary Clinton or Kamala Harris do. They are a part of the many women who have run for president.
But why didn’t they win? And is it a coincidence that Clinton and Harris happened to lose to the same man? This essay is about the sometimes-not-so-secret sexism in the voting industry and how it all boils down to gender roles and stigma. But if we want to do that, we have to start at the beginning.
What are gender roles? Where did they come from? According to Britannica, gender roles are a culturally and socially determined set of expected behaviors, attitudes and characteristics based on concepts of masculinity and femininity. Masculinity are qualities or attributes regarded as characteristics of men or boys, and the opposite for femininity. A masculine gender role may be wearing blue, having short hair, and being the “working parent”. A feminine gender role may be wearing pink, wearing skirts, and taking care of the kids.
As for where they came from? That’s a very loaded question. The furthest documentation of gender based roles are from ancient societies like Greece or Rome. But one could argue that they didn’t start here. It could be just the way we evolved or it could be a biological issue—conditioned to see females as weak, frail, and in need of protection.
Around the time of the first presidency, men were so afraid to be seen as feminine that they instinctively put down women and their behavior. Holly Hartman writes, “Women were measured against the same standard as men, restricting them to a position one rung beneath a male, perhaps making women into lesser human beings.”
Men were seen as strong leaders and women were seen to be submissive to them. This belief that men are to be in dominant, leading positions and women in more “soft”, caring ones lead to how we see career choices in reference to gender. “These stereotypes are harmful,” Psychology Today says, “because they limit our ideas about the types of roles that are appropriate for women and men and often relegate women to lower-status, lower-paying careers.”
So, of course, a woman couldn’t be president! She’d rule over men! But people don’t want to explicitly say that. Some people have what’s called “pragmatic bias”.
The Greater Good magazine with Berkeley University did a study on pragmatic bias. “Holding pragmatic bias against women in an election means that people who may prefer a woman candidate still won’t vote for her out of fear that it will be too difficult or impossible for her to win—often because they believe others won’t support her.” In their study, which they did during Donald Trump’s first term, 76% of people felt that it would be harder for a woman to win against him while 8% felt it would be easier. The other 16% didn’t think it made a difference. “When asked why they thought women were less electable,[…]Ninety-one percent said they thought ‘many Americans are not yet ready to vote for a woman president,’ while many also believed women candidates would have to meet higher requirements for proving themselves, face biased media coverage, and endure harsher, more effective criticism from their opponents.”
While these aren’t unreasonable, and actually quite realistic, another study showed that when the same people were informed that people are ready for a woman president, and would be willing to support her, they still said that they wouldn’t vote for a female candidate. “The researchers asked people about their general views about voting for women candidates, or about their intention to vote for specific women (like Warren or Klobuchar). Unfortunately, giving people accurate information about others’ readiness for a woman president was not enough to change their intentions to vote for a woman” This makes the “pragmatic bias” seem like more of an excuse. People may not say that they themselves aren’t ready for a female president, and blame it on the rest of the country. But even when it’s said that a lot of the country would be ready, they won’t change their mind. All in all, pragmatic bias is still bias.
However, there are some people that are more open about their bias. There is an argument that women are “too emotional” to become president. Forbes says, “New research finds that labeling a woman as “emotional” or telling her to “calm down” makes her point of view seem less credible. From Kamala Harris to Oprah Winfrey, the “emotional” label is often thrown on women in politics, entertainment, business and any realm where women are trying to be heard.”
This study, done in 2022 and found in the Psychology of Women Quarterly journal, showed that when reading an argument, participants tended to see a woman’s argument as less legitimate after she was told to “calm down”. However, when it was said to a man the credibility of his argument didn’t take a toll.
With this study in mind, it calls to question how many people changed their minds about former presidential candidates Hilary Clinton and Kamala Harris when their competitor Donald Trump called them “totally unhinged” and “hysterical” respectively. Clinton won the popular vote for president. So what went wrong come November? She herself told TIME, “It should not be an impossible task for more women to achieve their own goals, but we face what is a pernicious double standard that is aided and abetted by the idea of perfectionism.” TIME describes it as being wrapped in scotch tape. “Everything sticks to her, and she can’t move.”
My claim is not that these women or any of the women that ran for president are perfect. They’ve all made mistakes, but so have male candidates. Yes, you could argue that Kamala’s past with racial justice is shady, but that doesn’t hold a candle to the allegations and charges placed against her competitor and president elect, Donald Trump.
You could argue that being a woman in this context is being a minority, as well as not being white. Case in point, Kamala Harris may have been doomed from the start. Unfortunately, there is a considerable amount of black women who feel that we don’t have many people on our side socially, even men of our race. Black men seem to be men before they are black and white women seem to be white before they are women. Black men and white women seem less likely to back us up, which could show in a situation where a black woman is running for president.
Attitudes toward Women and Men in Politics: Perceived Male and Female Candidate Competencies and Participant Personality Characteristics, a JSTOR article, mentions a study where it was found that “black women were significantly more likely than black men to vote for a woman.” White men and white women had about the same likelihood of voting for a woman.
So between pragmatic bias, being human, and the scotch tape that is being a female presidential candidate, it is much more difficult for a woman to make it to the highest office in the nation. And it becomes extra hard if you happen to be a black woman. Women aren’t taken as seriously as men and need to be basically perfect if they wish to succeed. However, Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign gave a lot of people hope. And hopefully, that hope is enough to inspire change.
Thank you for reading.
Author’s Note:
This piece was, of course, inspired by the 2024 Presidential Election. Kamala Harris even having the chance to run meant so much to me as a black girl, given the history of this country. When doing the research for this piece, I found out that there have been many, many women who ran in the past, way before Harris or Hilary Clinton. It’s upsetting that none of these women were seen as unfit, simply because of reasons tracing back to their gender.
Laci Harris | 16 | Baltimore, MD
