What is it that influences how we think of male and female
political candidates and officeholders? What types of information are reported and most easily
accessible to help voters make educated decisions? Where is it that we get our
information from? In one simple phrase, it is the media. We are constantly
bombarded with newspaper articles, advertisements, and magazine interviews
telling us what important facts we should be paying attention to when it comes
to our representatives. However, the media reports largely different matters
when comparing male and female office holders. To illustrate this point, I will
use the example of New York Senator’s, Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand.
When researching
these two prominent political figures, I found a stark difference in what
manner the two were represented and in what the focus of the information
presented was. First off, when merely searching the images of both Senators
Gillibrand and Schumer I found that the top image category results for Senator
Schumer were: guns, hair plugs, and inauguration. The top three for Senator
Gillibrand were: weight loss, hottest senator, and family. Now, while Senator
Schumer does have one category that has to do with physical characteristics,
all three of Senator Gillibrand’s have absolutely nothing to do with her
political values or policies that she is for or against. Her weight loss back
in 2012 was widely reported and many articles were run claiming they were
spilling the secret of how Senator Gillibrand lost 40 pounds1. While
health is important, at the time of her weight loss she was still involved in
many important congressional decisions, but where were all the magazine
articles covering that? Rather than report the substantive decisions she was
involved in, the focus instead remained on her physical appearance. 
Looking at the information provided in the top news links
for each senator was very telling as well. On the first page of results, there
were articles involving Senator Chuck Schumer that discussed how he believes
the Senate will remain under Democratic majority after the elections2,
interviews where he explained the negative repercussions that will be evident
if indeed Democrats do lose the majority3, his endorsement of a New
York State Senator4, and his fight for the elimination of tariffs on
grape trade5. While Senator Schumer’s top results were primarily
concerning a policy issue or the fate of Democrats in the upcoming election,
the top results for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand took an entirely different emphasis.
The first article discussed how Senator Gillibrand spoke on
a panel with other prominent female figures and talked about what women are
tired of being questioned about and how they are not valued for the work the
put in. Senator Gillibrand gave the example that when she was a young attorney,
she worked overtime, canceled vacations, and made many arrangements in order to
be able to present her best work on a specific case. At the end of case, her
boss threw a party and instead of talking about her hard work in the case he
remarked to everyone, “Don’t you just love her haircut?”6 The other top news articles involved
photo shoots, discussion of her family and dating history, as well as an
interview where sexist comments and personal experiences were the topic of conversation7.
At the time these articles were published, she was working
on more substantive problems; such as, banning plastic microbeads, visiting
Wind Farms, and endorsing other candidates before election time. However, to
reach these substantive articles, you had to click through a few pages of
results. This means that the articles that are reaching the most people are the
ones presenting female representatives as personable people, but not
necessarily as individuals with assertive political positions.
I believe these differences exist because the
media is always at the ready to criticize individuals in the spotlight, whether
politicians, celebrities, or prominent business people. As we read in the
article for class that was by Hayes, Lawless, and Bettinger, it has been found
that men and women receive comparable damaging consequences when the media
reports fashion faux pas or anything negative about their appearance8. However,
women are much more likely to be the focus of negative criticism because they have many various facets of their
wardrobe and appearance to be criticized on than do their male
counterparts.
In a study by Kathleen Dolan, she has found evidence that as
our society has advanced over the years, there has been near equal coverage on
both male and female candidates when looking at those running for congress and
state governors9. Since 2000 there has been less coverage concerning
women’s appearance than there has been in the past; however, women are still
more likely than men to be subject to questions or comments about their
appearance. This is clearly witnessed in my example between Senator Gillibrand
and Senator Schumer, because while discussing women’s appearances may largely
be a thing of the past, it has yet to fully change the media’s depiction of
Kirsten Gillibrand. In
Senator Gillibrand's interview with Juliann Marguiles she said in her first
campaign her opponent said, "Oh she's just a pretty face," implying
she could not be pretty and qualified10.
Yet one area where bias in the media still remains is at
the presidency level. According to Dolan, women vying for the office of the
president are more likely to be subject to media coverage that focuses on their
appearance, sex, and their capability than men are. So while the media’s
portrayal of female officeholders and candidates has improved on some levels,
there are still others that need to be amended so that a woman’s sex and
consequentially a focus on appearance, does not affect her candidacy.
The differences in how the media illustrates women and men
may have decreased over time, however it still must be discussed because it
still exists to some degree. It will cease to be a topic of research as soon as
the ways that media outlets report their stories changes and stops focusing on
the uniqueness of candidates merely because of their gender. As studies have
looked at how female candidates present themselves through their websites and campaigns,
it is clear they are making an effort to be gender neutral and not focus on
only “women’s issues.” Similarly, once the media updates their perspective and
reaches a point where there is not a gendered theme to their articles and
stories, women, especially at the presidential candidacy level, will be treated
as equal opponents to the male candidates.
1http://www.self.com/life/health/2012/01/senator-kirsten-gillibrand-slideshow/
2http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/chuck-schumer-predicts-that-democrats-will-hold-the-senate/article/2555295?utm_campaign=Fox%20News&utm_source=foxnews.com&utm_medium=feed
3http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/26/chuck-schumer-democrats_n_6049766.html
4http://wamc.org/post/us-senator-charles-schumer-endorses-state-senator-cecilia-tkaczyk-re-election-bid
5http://www.wkbw.com/news/Senator-Schumer-wants-tariff-on-grape-trade-280904712.html
6http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/10/kamala-harris-kirsten-gillibrand-sexism
7http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/fashion/kirsten-gillibrand-and-julianna-margulies-share-more-than-fame.html?_r=1
8http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.12113/pdf
9https://rooneycenter.nd.edu/assets/11304/dolan_conference.pdf
10http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/fashion/kirsten-gillibrand-and-julianna-margulies-share-more-than-fame.html
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