If the 2016 campaign season has proven anything so far, it’s that women have an incredibly difficult time succeeding in politics.
Hillary Clinton is currently polling at the top of the Democratic field of candidates and Carly Fiorina is tied with Jeb Bush for sixth place in the crowded Republican campaign, according to publicpolicypolling.com.
Despite their strong progress in the campaign so far, they both have been the subject of sexism and unfair treatment.
Donald Trump, for example, once asked voters if they would vote for someone with Fiorina’s face. And rapper T.I. said in an interview he won’t vote for Clinton just because she’s a woman.
Yikes.
These comments, however, hopefully reflect a dying trend in treatment of female politicians.
A Gallup poll from June 2015 found that 92 percent of Americans polled would be willing to support a female candidate for president, for example.
Despite this number, we still see too many disparaging comments made about women from politicians, officials and political commentators.
The poll also doesn’t measure the general state of women in government overall.
Women’s representation in government is awfully depressing. Female politicians don’t even make up 20 percent of the United States Congress, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.
It doesn’t get better once we reach the mayoral side of politics. Only 17 percent of the largest cities in the country have a female mayor, according to the Center.
Why are there so many more male politicians than female?
I argue intense, unfair media coverage of female candidates is part of the problem.
Female candidates are constantly being targeted in the media not just on their appearance, but also based on things like their tone of voice. According to Vox, female candidates are often pressured to lighten their tone when campaigning to avoid being called “bossy.”
However, when male candidates display an aggressive tone, they are judged to have assertive leadership qualities in comparison to their female peers.
If you’re a woman in American politics, your worth, your ability to govern and your beliefs are determined by your looks and whether or not people think you are bossy.
It’s not fair that this is the current standard for evaluating female candidates for office.
Yet I don’t see too many people in media who are fighting to change it.
I’m surprised more political figures aren’t doing more to appeal themselves to women in general. According to the Washington Post, women have consistently voted more than men in every presidential election since 1980.
In 2012 alone, female voter turnout was more than four percentage points higher than male voter turnout.
Women care about politics and government just as much — if not more — than men do, yet they face unfair criticism and also don’t have the same representation in these fields as men.
To create a more level playing field for female candidates, we can focus on specific policy proposals instead of a candidate’s personal appearance or tone of voice.
We can discuss a candidate’s experience, her political track record and her ability to lead compared to superficial qualities, like whether or not Clinton or Fiorina use a lot of hairspray.
ttfitzpa@indiana.edu
@tfitzwrites
