During the 2016 elections the contenders were Donald Trump, male Republican and Hilary Clinton, female Democrat. Hillary Clinton has become the first woman to get all the way to the primaries, however in the outcome of the election she did not succeed in defeating her competition. During the election, Clinton received a lot of backlash from media coverage on her appearance and how she ran her election. People saw her as speaking in a "masculine", a more fierce demeanor. Rather than breaking the gender institutions, she conformed, the following article below expands on this idea.
The fact that Hillary did not take importance in her femininity and conformed to masculine ways may have been seen as a disconnect for women around her. If women are trying to find a place in a world of politics and their representative on the matter conforms to gendered institutions of what a generic politician should be there does not seem to be much room for growth. Clinton being a women, should have stressed the importance of her role as a women in politics rather than take on a different persona.
Perceptions of Men on Hillary Clinton
Perceptions of Women on Hillary Clinton
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/01/21/second-those-emotions
This article discusses the iconic moment where Hillary shed her robotic mask and almost broke down in Portsmouth when asked a question on how she managed her strength during a campaign, she responded on the verge of tears. The media was split, some saw this as either fake or rehearsed and others as a gentle side of Hillary, making her more human and relateable. People saw this as a detrimental event in her campaign much like the incident with Senator Edmund Muskie, it was sure to hurt her votes and image. Tom Lutz mentioned in the article says, “The men who cry prove that they are not too manly; the women who maintain stoic control of their emotions prove that they are not too ‘feminine.’ “ And: “Hillary Clinton has been routinely condemned by some of her critics for being too masculine, too hard and cold, but one can imagine the criticism that would rain down on her if she were to cry on camera.”
“The gender issue, people say it shouldn’t matter anymore,” said Nancy Mills, a member of the Democratic National Committee and longtime powerbroker in Pennsylvania politics. “But it always matters because it exists. You can’t ignore it and make it go away.”
- http://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/hidden-sexism/
- Article highlights key aspects of sexism in elections and zones in on the 2016 Presidential Election and the challenges Clinton faced.
- "For Clinton, however, the root of her problem with white men stems from a central aspect of benevolent sexism, according to Glick: its use as a tool to reward women who accept traditional gender roles, and punish those who don’t. Any first lady who was discouraged from meddling in her husband’s policy work, and received lavish praise for the food at a White House function, has first-hand experience of benevolent sexism."
- Due to what people had seen as, competitive, assertiveness, and self promotional it it said that Clinton was exhibiting "stereotypical masculine ways" and therefore this affected her run in the election.
"Clinton is routinely called unlikable, bitchy, cold, robotic, calculating, out of touch, pandering, pathologically ambitious, ruthless, selfish, distant, paranoid, untrustworthy, a nasty and mean enabler, a congenital liar, corrupt, unethical, dishonest, programmed, and inauthentic."
"When Clinton was revealed to have used her personal email account to conduct some State Department business, it was loudly proclaimed she should go to jail; when it was revealed that Colin Powell did exactly the same thing, it was a big yawn. If she competes hard, she is ruthless; but if she wins she is lucky or the system is rigged. It’s hard to see a course of conduct open to Clinton that will not provoke further criticism – except, of course, retiring from public life entirely and baking those chocolate chip cookies. "
There was definitely a gender bias and stereotype during Clinton's campaign. Many people would not vote for her just because she was a female, others did not see her fulfilling the role of a women in politics, and others did not trust her due to her scandals. However Donald Trump had many, if not more scandals and they were surprisingly not scrutinized the way Clinton's actions were. This can be seen as a gender disadvantage: "Bernie Sanders shouts, and he is viewed as forceful; Clinton shouts and she is viewed as shrill, out of control, and overly emotional. When President Obama speaks in clear, logical, detached terms, he is being thoughtful and articulate; when Clinton does, she is cold, calculating, and programmed." This forms a theory called the agentic bias which is defined as: the bias that is displayed towards women who behave in confident, competitive, and assertive ways and, therefore, who are not conforming to traditional female stereotypes such as modesty and deference. http://andieandal.com/hillary-clinton-sum-stereotypes/
I think that gender greatly affected the Presidential Election of 2016, Hillary Clinton went through a lot of scrutiny for being a women and it causes a lot of obstacles for her to run. I think that gender plays a big part in election because even though in our minds we think a women president is good, people are not ready to make that step for personal reasons, gender stereotypes, and gender bias. In order for the role of women in politics to expand, people need to fully overcome their beliefs and become more accepting and fair when choosing the right candidate. Perhaps looking at both genders under the same lenses rather than focusing on the cons of each gender. Conforming to the gender institutions also affected the way Hillary;s campaign turned out because instead of women seeing her as a voice for the women they saw her as someone who took on masculine ways of thinking and demeanor therefore ultimately becoming another male candidate. There are many other factors to why she lost the election but in terms of gender the main ones are quite clear. I think regardless of who ran, they would have faced the same ordeals, it was a positive that Clinton has experience working on elections, with her husband and she was a strong women independently.
Credits:
Created with images by DFAT photo library - "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the ASEAN East Asia Summit July 2012" • DonkeyHotey - "Hillary - These allegations are false." • kakissel - "Clinton Rally 55" • JeepersMedia - "Hillary Clinton" • johnhain - "hillary clinton president"