According to pollsters and political reporters, a dispiriting dynamic has taken hold of the early stages of the Democratic presidential primary: Voters are discounting female candidates as unelectable.
As Amber Phillips explained in The Washington Post, Democratic voters say that while they themselves may support Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and other women who are running for president, they worry that other people — their friends and neighbors, the news media, a lot of the men in their lives — won’t give a woman a fair shot against President Trump.
To understand Bidenmentum, you've got to have some of the conversations I had yesterday: Middle-aged women explaining that 2016 showed that voters won't elect a female president, so they've got to be strategic.
Emotionally, such reticence makes sense. Hillary Clinton’s loss to a cartoon misogynist left an enduring wound. Three years later, the memory feels like a flashing danger sign — a warning that however much some may want it, this country is simply not ready to elect a woman as president.
[Farhad Manjoo will answer your questions about this column on Twitter on Friday at 2:30 p.m. Eastern: @fmanjoo.]
But Democrats, for your own sake and the sake of our nation, I beseech you: Drive away such useless thoughts!
Overlooking a qualified woman because you expect misogynists to have a problem with her is the very definition of patriarchy. In doing so, you are abdicating the voting booth to the enemies of equality and are perpetuating the dynamic that has given us 45 male presidents in a row.
But that’s not all. In the 2020 cycle, something else is at play. Today, doubting a candidate’s electability because she’s a woman isn’t just unfair — it’s exactly backward. This year, it’s the men whose electability you should doubt.
Given the slate of highly qualified women who are now running, and given irrefutable recent evidence that American society is wracked at every level by a pervasive and enduring misogyny, it’s the women who can make the more sensible political and substantive case that someone of their gender must occupy the White House.
Meanwhile, every man who’s running will somehow have to come up with a credible answer to this simple question: After everything we’ve just learned about how gender bias has systematically decimated female leadership in America, can you give us one good reason for the next president to be yet another man?
I’ve spent a lot of time chatting with people in and out of politics about this question, and I really haven’t heard a good answer to it. And so I’ve come to harbor the opposite bias. It would be a terrible mistake for the Democrats to nominate a man as their standard-bearer against Trump, and it would be tragic for the United States to elect a man to the presidency in 2020 — not just Trump but any man, whether Biden or Beto or Buttigieg or Bernie.
This isn’t because all the men who are running are terrible. It’s because, in key ways, a man, even your favorite man, would be a lesser advocate than many of the women for some of the most important social and political issues of the day. A male candidate’s very maleness would damage a central pillar of the best political arguments against Trump. And if he wins, his gender’s enduring blindness to issues involving women in society might stunt urgent and necessary political action.
Let’s start with the political calculus. Though the 2016 race was besotted with gender bias, it’s a mistake to conclude that Americans will not vote for a woman over Donald Trump, because what happened in 2016 was that a majority of Americans voted for a woman over Donald Trump.
And in the past few years, the political climate for female candidates has only grown more favorable. In the spiraling revelations of #MeToo, much of the nation (especially men) suddenly saw the damaging pervasiveness of misogyny in every part of society.
Today, gender politics are at the core of all politics. There is a huge gender gap — most voters in 2018 were women, and about 60 percent of them voted for Democrats — and much of the money, organization and energy on the left has been driven by a broad, reawakened feminism. And not just on the left: According to Gallup, the “way women are treated in U.S. society” was among the most important issues to voters in 2018, above gun policy, taxes, wealth inequality and Russian involvement in American politics.
This reawakened feminism should turn reflexive bias on its head. The women who are running this year are broadly qualified to occupy the White House. They’ve won statewide races, they’ve survived brutal primaries, they’ve advanced novel and pathbreaking public policy ideas. I can’t see many of the male candidates making a strong case that he would be a more effective advocate for the feminist energy now fueling the left than any of these talented women.
Indeed, when I think of, say, Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders taking on Trump on women’s issues, I cringe. The picture of two old men shouting over each other about all they’ve done for women would be a devastating indictment of their advocacy of women’s rights in America.
You might say it’s unfair or even sexist to question a male Democrat’s commitment to feminism. But even if you overlook this candidate’s handsiness or that one’s casual male entitlement, the idea that men are poor allies is supported by evidence: Surveys show that men significantly underestimate the frequency of sexual harassment of women. Research also shows that electing women to office improves what governments do: Women tend to get more work done for their constituents than men, and in particular, they tend to deliver on policy goals that directly benefit women and families in society.
And common sense tells us that electing a woman as president would deal a smashing symbolic blow to the patriarchy. How can even the most enlightened male candidate rebut that plain fact? In 100 years, what will stand as the more appropriate response to the upheaval of the Trump years and of #MeToo — electing the first woman or electing a very woke man?
Sorry, boys. The answer here is obvious.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Farhad Manjoo became an opinion columnist for The Times in 2018. Before that, he wrote the State of the Art column. He is the author of “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.” @fmanjoo • Facebook
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | The Next President Should Not Be a Man
Opinion | The Next President Should Not Be a Man
According to pollsters and political reporters, a dispiriting dynamic has taken hold of the early stages of the Democratic presidential primary: Voters are discounting female candidates as unelectable.
As Amber Phillips explained in The Washington Post, Democratic voters say that while they themselves may support Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and other women who are running for president, they worry that other people — their friends and neighbors, the news media, a lot of the men in their lives — won’t give a woman a fair shot against President Trump.
To understand Bidenmentum, you've got to have some of the conversations I had yesterday: Middle-aged women explaining that 2016 showed that voters won't elect a female president, so they've got to be strategic.
Emotionally, such reticence makes sense. Hillary Clinton’s loss to a cartoon misogynist left an enduring wound. Three years later, the memory feels like a flashing danger sign — a warning that however much some may want it, this country is simply not ready to elect a woman as president.
[Farhad Manjoo will answer your questions about this column on Twitter on Friday at 2:30 p.m. Eastern: @fmanjoo.]
But Democrats, for your own sake and the sake of our nation, I beseech you: Drive away such useless thoughts!
Overlooking a qualified woman because you expect misogynists to have a problem with her is the very definition of patriarchy. In doing so, you are abdicating the voting booth to the enemies of equality and are perpetuating the dynamic that has given us 45 male presidents in a row.
But that’s not all. In the 2020 cycle, something else is at play. Today, doubting a candidate’s electability because she’s a woman isn’t just unfair — it’s exactly backward. This year, it’s the men whose electability you should doubt.
Given the slate of highly qualified women who are now running, and given irrefutable recent evidence that American society is wracked at every level by a pervasive and enduring misogyny, it’s the women who can make the more sensible political and substantive case that someone of their gender must occupy the White House.
Meanwhile, every man who’s running will somehow have to come up with a credible answer to this simple question: After everything we’ve just learned about how gender bias has systematically decimated female leadership in America, can you give us one good reason for the next president to be yet another man?
I’ve spent a lot of time chatting with people in and out of politics about this question, and I really haven’t heard a good answer to it. And so I’ve come to harbor the opposite bias. It would be a terrible mistake for the Democrats to nominate a man as their standard-bearer against Trump, and it would be tragic for the United States to elect a man to the presidency in 2020 — not just Trump but any man, whether Biden or Beto or Buttigieg or Bernie.
This isn’t because all the men who are running are terrible. It’s because, in key ways, a man, even your favorite man, would be a lesser advocate than many of the women for some of the most important social and political issues of the day. A male candidate’s very maleness would damage a central pillar of the best political arguments against Trump. And if he wins, his gender’s enduring blindness to issues involving women in society might stunt urgent and necessary political action.
Let’s start with the political calculus. Though the 2016 race was besotted with gender bias, it’s a mistake to conclude that Americans will not vote for a woman over Donald Trump, because what happened in 2016 was that a majority of Americans voted for a woman over Donald Trump.
And in the past few years, the political climate for female candidates has only grown more favorable. In the spiraling revelations of #MeToo, much of the nation (especially men) suddenly saw the damaging pervasiveness of misogyny in every part of society.
Today, gender politics are at the core of all politics. There is a huge gender gap — most voters in 2018 were women, and about 60 percent of them voted for Democrats — and much of the money, organization and energy on the left has been driven by a broad, reawakened feminism. And not just on the left: According to Gallup, the “way women are treated in U.S. society” was among the most important issues to voters in 2018, above gun policy, taxes, wealth inequality and Russian involvement in American politics.
This reawakened feminism should turn reflexive bias on its head. The women who are running this year are broadly qualified to occupy the White House. They’ve won statewide races, they’ve survived brutal primaries, they’ve advanced novel and pathbreaking public policy ideas. I can’t see many of the male candidates making a strong case that he would be a more effective advocate for the feminist energy now fueling the left than any of these talented women.
Indeed, when I think of, say, Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders taking on Trump on women’s issues, I cringe. The picture of two old men shouting over each other about all they’ve done for women would be a devastating indictment of their advocacy of women’s rights in America.
You might say it’s unfair or even sexist to question a male Democrat’s commitment to feminism. But even if you overlook this candidate’s handsiness or that one’s casual male entitlement, the idea that men are poor allies is supported by evidence: Surveys show that men significantly underestimate the frequency of sexual harassment of women. Research also shows that electing women to office improves what governments do: Women tend to get more work done for their constituents than men, and in particular, they tend to deliver on policy goals that directly benefit women and families in society.
And common sense tells us that electing a woman as president would deal a smashing symbolic blow to the patriarchy. How can even the most enlightened male candidate rebut that plain fact? In 100 years, what will stand as the more appropriate response to the upheaval of the Trump years and of #MeToo — electing the first woman or electing a very woke man?
Sorry, boys. The answer here is obvious.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Farhad Manjoo became an opinion columnist for The Times in 2018. Before that, he wrote the State of the Art column. He is the author of “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.” @fmanjoo • Facebook
Source: Read Full Article