Hillary Clinton and Misogyny: REVISITED

Since I wrote a previous entry, “Hillary Clinton and Misogyny”, I have heard Erika Falk, author of “Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns”, speak on BookTV, CSPAN2, 4-13-08. She studied the topic covering a period from 1884-present.

(At the end of this entry, I have a big BUT!)

She has uncovered some dimensions of bias against women candidates that only scholarship would reveal. The trend lines of media bias have shown systematic and continuous bias against women with no convergence to equality of treatment (with one exception) in the press. That in a society where the principle should be: People should have equal access to power. The unequal access discourages women from putting themselves in races for political offices. There are other negative consequences as well.

She cites eight cases of women who ran for President, and analyzed the media coverage in each case. (1872 was the exception.) In substantive coverage, men received %68 more column inches. Women’s accomplishments were substantially reduced. Women’s titles were dropped (Senator, Representative, etc.). Women were subjected to stereotypical treatment–physical descriptions, etc. Women received four times more stereotyping than men. Men were given three times more mentions of positive viability statements. Women received twice as many descriptions of emotionality as men. Women received significantly more arguments against their competence as leaders and their ability to handle crises. Women were represented as unnatural in the position of the presidency (as it is unnatural for a woman to hold a position of authority over the male–the Bible says so.)

The press feels compelled to remark about the novelty of a woman running, i.e., the “first” to run, forgetting that others have run in the past. The media portray women as unsalable as candidates: “America is not ready for a woman President.” “A woman can’t win.” “It is un-womanly to run for President and campaign door-to-door.” Women are essentially “mothers” .

We citizens of the U.S. do have a media problem, BIG TIME! And the media do not know it because we do not read much of their self-analysis and -criticism in the columns we like to read. Why? Because the commentators are generally promoting themselves as stars, celebrities. Who would want to jeopardize that? Criticize yourself and people will seize on that without giving credit for the highly worthy attempt to qualify something one has said or done. We have seen how difficult it is for a candidate to admit that a mistake has been made.

I believe Hillary has not campaigned well. I like “words”. She has attacked “words” because she perceives that Obama’s main appeal is “just words”. I find her words to be mundane. I want something more than mundanity in our national CEO. That is an issue for me, and a reasonable one,I believe.

Another issue is her stretching the truth to score political points.

Now, have I shown a bias against her gender? I think not. I voted for her in the caucus. But if I had it to do over again, I would not.

To me , race, gender, and age are not that relevant. I have a hard time fixing in my mind the candidates’ stands on the critical issues. That debate has dropped out of view.

However, here is my big BUT!

Much of the above about the treatment of women candidates PROBABLY IS APPLICABLE TO BLACK MALE CANDIDATES as well.