Is America really ready for a female president? Yes, now get over it.
Women have proven themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the 2020 presidential race, but systemic misogyny may just be the thing that holds them back from the Oval Office. Uncertainty in female electability seems to have heightened since Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, overshadowing the 2020 female candidates’ policies. Whether these questions are voiced or not, they have had an enduring, negative impact on women in politics and serve to halt progress toward equality. In order for a woman to win the presidency, it is imperative that we stop questioning her ability to do so.
Though female candidates are competitive in the polls policy-wise, when voters were asked if they believed their neighbors would be comfortable with a woman president, only 33% of voters were confident, despite 74% claiming they’d be comfortable themselves. This response discrepancy is often a representation of opinions that voters may be embarrassed to admit they hold themselves.
As if the American electoral process isn’t enough of a blood sport already, subconscious misogyny among voters and media organizations makes running as a woman even more brutal. Female candidates experience disproportionate levels of criticism for displaying the same traits as their male counterparts: ambition, aggression, dominance, and emotion. What’s more, an analysis conducted by Northeastern University’s School of Journalism found that the percentage of positive words describing female 2020 candidates in the media is substantially lower than male candidates. Sure, one explanation for this could be that female candidates are simply experiencing more campaign scandal; but with scandal running amok in the 2020 election regardless of gender, it seems far more likely that women are facing greater scrutiny due to subconscious misogyny.
This hypercriticism of women feeds into the ridiculously sexist idea that a female president would throw logic out the window as soon as she entered the White House, risking nuclear war over menopausal mood swings. The sexism at the root of this issue is far from partisan, but widespread across parties and genders: 20% of Democratic and independent men agree that women are 'less effective in politics than men.' Moreover, women seem to have internalized this political misogyny and projected it onto female candidates, resulting in 56% percent of American women reporting that they do not believe a woman could become President in 2020. This is exactly what keeps women from running in the first place.
The reality is that women repeatedly have proven themselves capable as elected officials. In fact, women might actually be more effective policy-makers. Since 2009, the average male member of Congress has had 1.57 of his bills enacted compared to his female colleague’s 2.31 bills. Likewise, female legislators manage to secure 9 percent more funding for their congressional districts than their male colleagues, totalling $49 million every year and all benefitting female-led districts. When boiled down to it, skepticism of women in politics is nothing more than an excuse to perpetuate misogynistic norms on a national scale.
Perceived electability means absolutely nothing in 2020 and hasn’t meant anything for quite some time. Neither one of our last two presidents were considered electable when they ran, yet both ended up holding the most powerful position in the nation. Unfortunately, with no past female presidents to act as a confidence-booster for the American public, our only hope of dismantling the remnants of a system that excluded women from politics for so long is to punch back twice as hard. A female president would be a revolutionary step toward social equality. Greater representation of women in politics could lead to fewer gender gaps in employment and end the assault on women’s reproductive rights. A woman in the Oval Office might just be the key to dismantling this nation’s structural misogyny and ending myths of feminine emotional volatility once and for all.
Many moderate Democrats argue that a woman is no match for Trump, proposing that Joe Biden run as the Democratic nominee instead. The Democratic Party needs to get a grip. Though they claim to be the party of progress, their habit of resorting to “electable” white men feels like the equivalent of rolling over and playing dead. The painful loss of the 2016 election has rippled into an obsession with electability; an obsession that voters must throw out the window immediately. Likewise, recent pushes for the political representation of marginalized groups and women mean Joe Biden may be less electable than he appears at first glance. The American people are looking for a candidate who reflects them and their needs; an older white man with a flaky record on people of color and womens’ issues may not make the cut.
Absolutely, the thought of a second term for the Trump administration is terrifying, but voters and media organizations alike cannot let their fear of a repeat of the last election cycle lead to a loss of faith in female candidates. After all, a record 102 women are now serving in the 116th Congress thanks to the landslide of support for female candidates in 2018. Though Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, she received three million more votes than President Trump, proving that the presidency is within the grasp of women, and it can be once more. A female presidential victory will lie in the Democratic Party’s ability to lay the misogynistic stereotypes aside and cultivate confidence among voters. As Washington senior senator Patty Murray, the most powerful woman in the Senate, asserted, “The fact that a woman hasn’t won yet does not mean that a woman cannot win.”