What do women who seek power get by playing the Woman Card?
Donald Trump came to the city of my birth yesterday, Spokane WA, to state this.
“You know what, the women get it better than we do, folks.”
Most Trumpisms, I can let wash right over me. They are buzzing flies, and if I choose not to stand over a pile of dung I usually don’t have to deal with them. This however, on the heels of his previous comments about Female Privilege… I can’t let this stand. Not when he spouted this nonsense in my own back yard.
Let’s start with the blatant advantage that HRC has gained from being a woman.
We have all heard it said, America only likes Hillary Clinton when she’s not running for office. This isn’t just a lukewarm attempt at a witty comeback line. It is absolutely true as her Gallup Poll Numbers over the years demonstrate:
Notice the stark low points? Like, in 1996 when she was supporting her husband’s campaign. Or, perhaps near the 2000 mark when running for senate in New York. Of course the next low point on the list is in lockstep with her presidential run in 2008.
Now, perhaps we can ascribe this to a particular flaw within Hillary Clinton. Perhaps an unwillingness to be totally transparent, or just some likability aspect of her personality that goes missing precisely when she would need it most. But, it is the following information that claws at my soul.
This isn’t (just) about Hillary Clinton
It’s been studied, “folks”. Harvard Kennedy School’s Gender Action Portal summarizes research on these topics. In one particular study, researchers created biography pages for 2 Oregon State Senators and randomly assigned a name and gender to each, then surveyed the study group. Can you guess the results?
- When participants saw male politicians as power-seeking, they also saw them as having greater agency (i.e., being more assertive, stronger, and tougher) and greater competence, while this was not true for their perceptions of power-seeking female politicians.
- When participants saw female politicians as power-seeking, they also saw them as having less communality (i.e., being unsupportive and uncaring), while this was not true for their perceptions of power-seeking male politicians.
- When female politicians were described as power-seeking, participants experienced feelings of moral outrage (i.e., contempt, anger, and/or disgust) towards them.
- Participant gender had no impact on any of the study outcomes – that is, women were just as likely as men to have negative reactions to power-seeking female politicians.
That’s right. This is what playing the Woman Card gets a potential candidate who is seeking “power”. She gets heaped with glorious emotions like:
And piled with the kind of adjectives we hope to ascribe to all of our political candidates:
The Woman Card also denies “power seeking” female candidates the following helpful qualities:
- Competence
- Toughness
- Strength
It is NO WONDER so few women even choose to run for public office. The good news is, having mentors can make an epic difference, as some of the research group’s work in India has shown (separate diary maybe someday).
I want to see gender parity throughout the political spectrum, but it sure as hell isn’t going to happen if we don’t recognize the subconscious undercurrent of opinion that is heaped upon any woman who dares to seek a higher station.
In closing, this Mother’s Day, I’ll comment on exactly why this is so personal to me.
TLDR here
I have a 6yr old daughter who, judging by her own interests and abilities, seems destined for a STEM career. Her pretend play frequently involves dinosaurs, dragons, and DNA alteration. Her mission, in her own words, is to bring a dinosaur to life. We read current articles on efforts to extract DNA from fossils, as well as the recent developments in devolving the chicken.
When watching the Good Dinosaur recently, she referenced characters in the movie by species name. I had to have her explain to me which ones she meant.
“The flying ones. At least they looked like nyctosaurs to me.” Ok kid, you’re the expert!
I can tell my pride and joy that she can be anything she wants, that no doors are closed to her. I can tell her until I’m blue in the face. But, how much more powerful would it be… if I could show her.
Edit 2016.05.08 3:12pm PST: corrected attribution
