{"id":21648,"date":"2020-08-10T19:14:45","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T19:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=21648"},"modified":"2020-08-10T19:14:45","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T19:14:45","slug":"watch-more-tv-to-understand-the-backlash-against-the-women-in-the-running-for-vice-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/watch-more-tv-to-understand-the-backlash-against-the-women-in-the-running-for-vice-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch more TV to understand the backlash against the women in the running for vice president"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karrin Vasby Anderson<\/a>, Colorado State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Joe Biden\u2019s promise to name a woman running mate has prompted familiar debates about gender and power.<\/p>\n

Are these potential vice presidents supposed to be presidential lackeys<\/a> or understudies<\/a> to the leader of the free world? Should they actively seek the position, or be reluctant nominees bound by duty?<\/p>\n

After Sen. Kamala Harris\u2019 name emerged as a short-list favorite, CNBC reported<\/a> that some Biden allies and donors \u201cinitiated a campaign against Harris,\u201d arguing that she was \u201ctoo ambitious\u201d and would be \u201csolely focused on eventually becoming president.\u201d <\/p>\n

Claiming that people who want to be president make bad vice presidents might seem ill-conceived if your audience is Vice President Joe Biden. And pundits and journalists quickly pointed out that the argument was racist<\/a> and sexist \u2013 like, really<\/a>, really<\/a> sexist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So why were Democratic Party insiders spouting it?<\/p>\n

One clue can be found in the way we tell stories about women politicians. In our book, \u201cWoman President: Confronting Postfeminist Political Culture<\/a>,\u201d communication scholar Kristina Horn Sheeler<\/a> and I<\/a> examine how fictional and actual women presidential figures are framed in news coverage, political satire, memes, television and film. Our close reading of these diverse texts reveals a persistent backlash that takes many forms: satirical cartoons that deploy sexist stereotypes<\/a>; the pornification of women candidates in memes<\/a>; and news framing that includes misogynistic metaphors<\/a>, to name a few. <\/p>\n

But in our chapter on fictional women presidents on screen, we found something particularly relevant to the coverage of the Democratic Party \u201cveepstakes.\u201d Women who are politically ambitious are presented as less trustworthy than those who don\u2019t actively seek the presidency.<\/p>\n

\n \"Sen.
\n Sen. Kamala Harris is being attacked for trying to climb too high.<\/span>
\n AP Photo\/John Locher<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There have been seven series on U.S. television that follow a woman president for at least one full season: ABC\u2019s \u201cCommander in Chief<\/a>\u201d; the Sci-Fi Channel\u2019s \u201cBattlestar Galactica<\/a>\u201d; Fox\u2019s \u201c24<\/a>\u201d; CBS\u2019 \u201cMadam Secretary<\/a>\u201d; Fox 21\u2019s \u201cHomeland<\/a>\u201d; Netflix\u2019s \u201cHouse of Cards<\/a>\u201d; and HBO\u2019s \u201cVeep<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

It may seem like a small point, but when showrunners want to create a \u201clikeable\u201d woman president, they go out of their way to demonstrate that pursuing the presidency isn\u2019t her life\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n

The women presidents in \u201cCommander in Chief\u201d and \u201cBattlestar Galactica\u201d didn\u2019t campaign for the office. They ascended to the presidency as a result of tragedy. In the former, the president dies of a brain aneurism; in the latter, a nuclear attack takes out the first 42 people in the presidential line of succession, leaving the secretary of education to fill the role. (To be fair, this did seem like a woman\u2019s likeliest path to presidential power in 2004.) Each character is portrayed as an ethical and effective leader \u2013 not perfect, but plausibly presidential. <\/p>\n

Conversely, series like \u201c24\u201d and \u201cHomeland\u201d feature women candidates who aggressively seek the presidency. In both cases, the women start out as principled politicians, but their true nature is revealed as weak and duplicitous. Their presidential tenures end up being ruinous for the nation, and order is restored by a white male \u2013 \u201c24\u2019s\u201d Jack Bauer and the male vice president in \u201cHomeland.\u201d HBO\u2019s \u201cVeep\u201d takes the premise of a craven woman politician to an absurd extreme, with actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus winning six consecutive Emmy Awards for her burlesque send-up<\/a> of the familiar female trope.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, both \u201c24\u201d and \u201cHomeland\u201d have important connections to real-world presidential politics. Both series portray the first woman U.S. president as a veteran politician and middle-aged white woman. They bear strong resemblances to the only woman who has been a major-party presidential nominee: Hillary Clinton. Appearing in 2008 and 2017, respectively, the storylines were clearly planned to coincide with what could have been Clinton\u2019s first term as U.S. president. <\/p>\n

Yet depictions in \u201c24\u201d and Homeland” of fictional women presidents align with communication scholar Shawn J. Parry-Giles\u2019 findings<\/a> that the media framed Clinton as inauthentic, Machiavellian, and ultimately, dangerous. <\/p>\n

\n \"President
\n President Elizabeth Keane of \u2018Homeland\u2019 is a craven politician who has a ruinous tenure in office.<\/span>
\n Showtime<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That brings us back to our current veepstakes. <\/p>\n

Criticisms of women vice presidential prospects echo cultural scripts that insist women who want to be president shouldn\u2019t be trusted. Understanding the resistance to Harris \u2013 and Elizabeth Warren<\/a>, Stacey Abrams<\/a> and others who announce their eagerness to serve \u2013 requires recognizing the diverse forms that backlash against women\u2019s political ambitions can take, which span from calling a congresswoman<\/a> a \u201cf\u2014\u2014 b\u2014-\u201d on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to portraying women presidents as Machiavellian on television dramas. <\/p>\n

Did pop culture cause those Biden funders to try to undermine Harris? <\/p>\n

No. But the stories we tell ourselves on screen have taught us that women who actually want to be president can\u2019t be trusted. That might be why people like Ambassador Susan Rice, who\u2019s never run for office, and Congresswoman Karen Bass, who said<\/a> she doesn\u2019t want to run for president, landed on Biden\u2019s short list to favorable coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt every step in her political career,\u201d The New York Times wrote<\/a> of Bass, \u201cthe California congresswoman had to be coaxed to run for a higher office. Now she\u2019s a top contender to be Joe Biden\u2019s running mate.\u201d <\/p>\n

Men who run for president typically have to demonstrate the requisite desire \u2013 the so-called \u201cfire in the belly<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bizarrely, women are supposed to act like they don\u2019t even want it.\"The<\/p>\n

Karrin Vasby Anderson<\/a>, Professor of Communication Studies, Colorado State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karrin Vasby Anderson, Colorado State University Joe Biden\u2019s promise to name a woman running mate has prompted familiar debates about gender and power. Are these potential vice presidents supposed to be presidential lackeys or understudies to the leader of the free world? Should they actively seek the position, or be reluctant nominees bound by duty? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":21649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[365,7046,2225,13,8472,536,8471,185],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21650,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21648\/revisions\/21650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}