Women candidates: Running against gender

[This is the fourth of a five-part series about politics, feminism and reflections on conservative women. Tune in tomorrow on how conservative women in politics will push back on the status quo. Cross-posted at Femocracy.net]

After several female candidates won their primaries last week, we were treated to a whole slew of articles that excitedly exclaimed this a new “year of the woman.” Between coverage of the prominence of women as Tea Party organizers and protectors, and the inroads Republican women are making into actual representation on their party’s ticket, it’s easy to be convinced women are having a moment. (Of course, if you do the math, you realize that even if every last woman won her race in November, the numbers of representation in politics would still be dismal.)
But then came an unsurprising article, entitled, “In primaries, female candidates didn’t make gender an issue.”
Hold the phone, ladies. 
First off, I’m not sure how you make gender “an issue” if you’re a woman running for office. Do you cry while whipping out pictures of your children? Ask voters if they’ve seen “Sex and the City 2” yet? Chat conspiratorially about tampons with ladies in the audience? Writer Anne Kornblut explains:

Tuesday’s elections put on display the increasing diversity of female candidates, as well as their growing resilience. They were for abortion rights and against them, old and young, part of the political establishment and new to it. Their male opponents attacked them — relentlessly, in some cases — apparently unworried about being seen as picking on a woman. The women touched on their gender, but did so sparingly. And they made few appeals to traditional women’s issues.

In other words: Female candidates are individuals who can think independently about issues, just like men … and run on those issues and win, without voter fear that once in office she will be subject to a “woman’s agenda” of total takeover? Shock! And of course it’s easy for them to make “few appeals to traditional women’s issues” – that’s what happens when progressive feminist issues are not your priority.
But more telling is Kornblut’s description of Meg Whitman on the campaign trail:

She is the first female billionaire to translate her business acumen into politics. Whitman rarely talked about gender in public and frequently campaigned alone, without her husband or sons; she presented herself as a strong, solo businesswoman rather than as a mother or a wife. When she was attacked by her male rival — on her spotty voting record, her stance on immigration and her reluctance to talk to the news media — Whitman did not complain that the treatment was sexist (at least not out loud).

I fall into the camp that believes a man can challenge a woman on her political stances without his criticisms being sexist. In fact, unless he insinuating she was weaker because she was a woman, or made a crack about her hair Carly Fiorina-style, then I think sparring over her voting record and immigration stance is fair game. Not to mention the fact that anytime a woman points to something as sexist, people accuse her of playing the victim card.
Or look at Carly Fiorina’s strategy:

The same was true of former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, who made her personal toughness a theme of her winning campaign for California’s GOP Senate nomination. She talked about how she recently battled breast cancer, but more as a way to convince voters of her strength and determination than to win sympathy.

Imagine that. She didn’t use cancer to garner sympathy in a reach for
pity votes. Would this even be a discussion for a man who ran after
recovering from prostate cancer?
But both these examples made me think of the quandary female candidates
find themselves in: That is to say, they must run against their gender.
Or rather, perceptions of women as being weaker, too emotional, and
sinking into the background of their family life far more than male
candidates.
Looking back to the 2008 campaign, when it was a death match between
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, how did
Hillary’s campaign start out? Mark Penn came out with the genius
strategy that she was going to be tougher than the men in the race. She
was not only going to do this by running a relentless campaign, but by
taking a more hawk-like stance on Iraq and Afghanistan, whereas peacenik
Obama talked about total withdrawal of troops. Why? Because she had to
prove a woman could be commander-in-chief in a country where female
soldiers technically aren’t allowed on the front lines – and prove she’d
never shrink away from war, but could lead the biggest military in the
world. When people wondered if she would be “too emotional” to occupy
the Oval Office, she replied by keeping her emotion in check at all
times.
Then people said she was too power-hungry and ambitious (no, surely not –
no one running for President is ever ambitious!) and that she was
basically a cipher, a wonk with no personality, no human touch.
Then she had her on-camera moment where she teared up and got
emotional in New, and our wise commentators said, “We’re finally
seeing the REAL HILLARY!” Conventional wisdom was that seeing her softer
side would humanize her:

It shouldn’t be Clinton’s Muskie moment. Photographers argue to this day
whether the moisture on Ed Muskie’s cheek during a passionate interview
on the eve of the 1972 Democratic primary came from tears or
snowflakes. But whichever it was, the moment sealed his fate as a man
too emotional to be president. Hillary’s teary moment may very
well work in the opposite direction: helping a candidate who is seen as
aloof and too tightly scripted appear more vulnerable, more human and
more appealing. And those qualities could be big assets as the
campaign careens out of New Hampshire, especially as a contrast
to the angry scenes of Clinton rebutting Obama and John Edwards
in Saturday night’s debate.

Wow. How do you argue with that? Clinton got too angry during a debate
(!) with Edwards and Obama, and was thus seen as alienating, because
those with a woman’s touch don’t get angry. She immediately had to
soften up to make the grab for voter’s hearts. I’m not suggesting her
tears were fake or emotions unreal, but she was in a no-win situation.
Voters first worry you’ll be too emotional as a woman president, so you
act tough. Then voters think  you’re inhuman, so you get teary. For the
record, Obama was consistently described as calm, cool and collected
during the campaign – I never heard commentators thirsting for his
tears. (Now, of course, is a different story.)
Then, after Hillary lost, John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running
made. I remember when I first read the news, my stomach dropped – it was
obviously a cynical ploy to grab the women’s vote from those angry
about Hillary’s loss, but at the same time, it just might work. Palin
was constantly surrounded by her family, playing up her role as mom –
but not the cookie-baking, apron-wearing mom. No, Palin was a hockey mom
– that gloriously bloody sport, full of body-checking and slamming
opponents into walls. Toughness! To put food on the table for her
family, she didn’t grocery shop like conventional moms. No, this was
Alaska. She hunted moose, taking down giant creatures and skinning them
for dinner. Hell, she shot wolves out of planes! Her identity as a woman
and a mom was inescapable, but she turned it to her advantage by, yes,
playing up the flirty feminine (winking, anyone?) yet at the same time
playing the guns-and-ammo fearless hunter with a serious set of survival
skills.
Saying “gender wasn’t an issue” during last Tuesday’s primaries is
silly. Of course gender was an issue. If gender weren’t an issue, female
candidates wouldn’t have to work double-time to prove their bona fides
on toughness. Meg Whitman was savvy by leaving the family at home – on
the campaign trail, associations of wife-and-mother are much stronger
for female candidates than husband-and-father are for men. (Sure, men
use their wives as political props to show their “family values” cred,
but it’s much easier for them to separate from their
family-as-window-dressing when it comes to fighting for the win.) She
became a billionaire by working her way to the top to run a huge
company. That’s incredible, and of course demonstrates her competence.
But at the same time, you can’t tell me as she worked her way up she
didn’t encounter some amount of sexism, or unspoken sentiments that she
couldn’t be CEO as a woman. So to counter that, you develop a thick
skin, you act strong and unstoppable, you work harder and come up with
better ideas so that eventually they eat their words – but you never,
ever point out sexism when you see it, because it could jeopardize your
success by making you a “whiner”. Carly Fiorina survived cancer, and she
used it to demonstrate that she was a fighter. Anything you throw at
her, she will beat.
Obviously gender doesn’t prevent women from winning, but it creates a
more complex situation that women must navigate with strategy and savvy.
A woman still must work harder to prove herself during a campaign,
because her starting gate is further behind – the perception of
womanhood as a cause of weakness, emotion, and inability to take charge
is an obstacle to overcome. Why else would women need to point to their
life stories to prove how tough they are? There are a number of things
valuable in a politician that women are thought to be better at (though
this is a generalization I don’t agree with) – the ability to
communicate, team-building, acting diplomatically, reading emotional
situations accurately. Do female candidates take to the campaign trail
and tell everyone, “I’m a better communicator than my opponent, and that
makes it easier to legislate and actually get things done”? No, they
try to prove how tough they are, considered to be a “masculine” quality.
Of course gender is an issue. For me, being a woman is an inextricable
part of my identity. It shapes how I view the world. Yet if I ran a
campaign, it would also inform my strategy on avoiding landmines on
everything from haircuts and cleavage to crying in public. We don’t live
in a post-feminist world yet – and until we do, if that’s even
possible, running as a woman is always going to have its own set of
complications.