Media Watch: Election 2024 Week 1

A Look Back & Kamala Harris’s First Week: What “Diversity Hire” Really Means and A Deeper Dive into “Childless Cat Ladies.”

“Is America Ready for a Woman President?”

What does this question even mean? Are we ready? As in: Is the table set and the casserole ready to come out of the oven? Or maybe: Is the entire country prepared to lose its mind when a female-type person is sitting behind the “resolute desk”?

The real question is: Are We Finally Going to Elect a Female President?

It seems as though maybe we are. Some alchemy of personality and history, some things-lining-up-in-just-the-right-way, some events that looked like one thing and suddenly became something else.

Perhaps “ripeness is all.” Shakespeare, in King Lear, was referring to the fact that we cannot control when we die, any more than we can control when we are born: “Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither: Ripeness is all." But maybe we can put a gendered twist on that: Is the time ripe for “men” to go hence and a woman to come “hither”—into the White House?

I’m going to be following that question in BordoLines over the next weeks up until the election. I come to the task having done it before; in fact, having written a book about it. That time, I started out hopeful and ended up crushed. But I learned a huge amount about the obstacles that faced both Hillary Clinton in particular and aspiring women in general, and I’ve got tons of receipts.

I’m not going to plough through all that again. If you’re interested, there’s my book and dozens of articles and stacks. But I do believe that assessing (and maybe, improving on) the present benefits from historical context. So I thought I’d start my election watch with a look back at what my answer was in 2017 when Politico asked some 20 women journalists, writers, and public figures “Will America Ever Have a Woman President?”

“The biggest obstacle any woman has faced and will continue to face in aspiring to the highest office in any country, at any time in history is that she is not a man. I know—duh. But the reality is that we haven’t yet begun to comprehend, let alone address, everything that flows from that seemingly simple fact. French philosopher Simone deBeauvoir remains the expert on it. In every era, in every culture, she pointed out, Man is the norm, and Woman is defined in terms of her difference from that norm. She may be reviled, she may be revered, but she is always judged by standards that are “special” to her sex, while the fact that men have a sex, too, goes unnoticed.

Here’s a banal but telling example: the suit was as much a uniform for the male politicians that Hillary Clinton competed against as it was for her. But for Clinton, the “pantsuit” was mocked (or cherished by some pro-Clinton feminists) as a special signature item. And here’s a non-banal one: while we accept it as “normal” when male politicians shout, interrupt, hog the stage, or aggressively interrogate, when Hillary raised her voice it was described as “screeching” and both Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris were told to shut up when they claimed too much time on the Senate floor. In February, Warren was famously rebuked by Mitch McConnell (“She was warned…nevertheless she persisted”) when, during confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions, she read a critical letter from Coretta Scott King. (Male senators later read the same letter without being cut off.) In July, Richard Burr ordered Harris to be silent and lectured her about her lack of “courtesy” for not allowing poor Sessions to ramble on evasively as she questioned him during the Senate Intelligence Committee into Russian interference in the 2016 election. (No one, as I recall, took Trey Gowdy or any others to task when they hammered away at Clinton during the Benghazi hearings.)

Beauvoir called this normalization of male behavior and singling out of women for special notice the “woman as Other”—and it’s especially pronounced when it comes to our norms, visual images, and expectations of the head of state. The female in charge is still so remarkable—even, apparently, in countries that have had women Queens for centuries—that women who aspire to or hold higher office tend to get glommed together by virtue of their sex. Theresa May has been described as “the new Hillary Clinton”—but also as “the British Angela Merkel” and “another Iron Lady,” referring to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Forget any ideological differences between Clinton, Thatcher, Merkel and May. They are all women leaders, “such rare creatures that they can only be understood through the prism of one another.”

Pictured: Helen Mirren as Elizabeth I in the 2005 miniseries.

It’s no wonder that Elizabeth I felt it crucial to convince her subjects that although she was a woman, she had the “heart and stomach of a King.” But Elizabeth also realized that there was danger lurking in presenting herself as too “masculine” (and thus seen as “unnatural”—a special problem for her, as she remained unmarried and childless) and took care to promote herself as a loving, maternal figure, too, with all English subjects as her children. Instinctively, she recognized that being the “other” in a masculinist world was not escapable, only negotiable.

It’s a classic double bind. To command authority requires demonstrating that you’ve got cahones; but to win the affection of subjects/voters one can’t be seen as too self-contained or in control—qualities that translate as “cold” in a woman. So, when Hillary Clinton teared up in a New Hampshire coffee shop after losing the 2008 Idaho primary, reporters declared that “the icy control queen” had finally “proved that she is human.” (She went on to win the New Hampshire primary.) Obama has wiped away tears on several occasions; it’s never seen as proof of his humanity (which has never been questioned, even when he is being his most professorial.) And almost unquestionably, if Clinton had actually spilled over with tears rather than simply welled up, her competency for office—especially as commander-in-chief—would have been questioned.

It’s depressing to recognize that any future contender will have to navigate some version of this double bind, not just because it is unfair (and not a very useful way to assess a candidates’ capability for office) but because it is virtually impossible to successfully walk that tightrope. And sadly for progressives, conservative female politicians may do better at it, because they come already validated ideologically as friends of the “male” world (via their gun-approving, tough-on-crime, aggressively anti-“woman card” stances) while also usually equipped with many children and ostentatious “family values”.

Pictured from left to right: Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher; Julia Gillard and Hillary Clinton; Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel.

Another factor that thus far has hurt progressive women politicians like Hillary Clinton is their feminism. Women may be “other,” but we apparently aren’t comfortable when that fact is called out and criticized. Women who have managed to get themselves elected have either disclaimed the label of “feminist”—Meir and Thatcher—or equivocated, as Merkel has, acknowledging “common ground” but not wanting “to adorn myself with these feathers.” So far, only Australia’s Julia Gillard was able to denounce the sexism of her opponent Tony Abbott—as well as deliver “a forthright attack on misogyny in public life”—and receive widespread acclaim.

Perhaps, however, the publication of Hillary Clinton’s What Happened will encourage some fresh recognition of—or at the very least, conversation about—the role that gendered double-standards and double-binds continue to play in American political (and not only political) life. During the election itself, any calling-out of the overt misogyny of much of the political rhetoric, or of the absence of media coverage of sexist double standards or stereotypes was shushed (by some on the left as well as the right) with scorn for “playing the woman card.” Now, however, despite being urged to go away and let the democrats fumble along as though gender doesn’t exist, Clinton has refused to be silent about it. And with that refusal, she may force us all to confront what must be acknowledged and challenged before the next election is permitted to simply play it out yet again.”

Well, that didn’t happen.

Hillary’s book was an mega-bestseller. But pundits complained that Hillary should stop “re-litigating” the past, and recognize it’s time to “move on.” The Sunday before the book was published, Susan Chira in The New York Times called Hillary “the woman who won’t go away” and—in keeping with the narrative promoted by Shattered—chastised her for “blaming everything but herself.” The problem, it seemed, was Hillary’s attitude: people wanted her to be more humble, to beg forgiveness for her sins. (She’d always had that “too uppity” problem.) And the media still hasn’t done a proper post-mortem on the 2016 election.

Then came the 2019 primaries. When the candidates first announced, weeks of serial salivating over male “charisma” went by without a mention of the ground-breaking policies—on childcare, education, taxes, health-scare—that Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar regularly proposed. But the vaguest promise of bitchy gossip and the headlines popped up: “Kirsten Gillibrand Still Struggling to Make any 2020 Friends,” “Kamala Harris Hasn’t spoken to women who filed sexual harassment law suit against ex-aide,” and of course the iconic “How Amy Klobuchar Treats her Staff” in which the New York Times excoriated Klobuchar for “losing patience” with an aide for failing to supply her with a plastic fork for her salad. “What happened next was typical: Ms. Klobuchar berated her aide instantly for the slip-up” and after improvising with a comb, “handed the comb to her staff member with a directive: Clean it.”

So among the women candidates we had a mean boss who eats salad with a comb, a pretender to Native-American ancestry (Elizabeth Warren) who some have described as a hectoring schoolmarm, and a prosecutor who loves putting people in jail,

I wrote my first piece about the media’s distorted depiction of Kamala Harris shortly after she dropped out of that primary, and then reposted it as a stack when, as Vice President, the press started coming at her again. Kamala had dazzled me ever since I watched her brilliant interrogation of William Barr (and later, Brett Kavanaugh.) My PhD is in philosophy, and I know what it’s like to follow a career-path that’s been historically a boy’s club and that depends on skills at argument that clash with traditional notions of feminine behavior. But during the primary Kamala’s “ruthlessness” in argument (as it was frequently branded) was held against her as a presidential candidate, not just because “aggressiveness” was unfeminine, but also called up racist images of the “angry Black woman.” Being a prosecutor was a liability, too, especially in the Black community, where it was generally felt that the “only way to help your people is to be a defense attorney.”

By the time Kamala had become a candidate for Vice-President, however, being a prosecutor wasn’t such an obstacle any more. For my part, I shivered with delight when I imagined her debating Mike Pence. I doubt, now that she’s the Democratic nominee for President, that Trump will risk it.

Here’s the piece I wrote in 2019 and then reposted as a stack in 2023

Kamala Harris: A Cautionary Revisit

Intermission

“Diversity” as Code for “Other”

The ‘DEI hire’ charge is so absurd that even Mikey Johnson is telling his colleagues to zip it up. We will see whether they—especially Trump and Vance—are capable of taking his advice.

Lawrence O’Donnell, in an earlier section of the coverage of President Biden’s “good-by” address, made an important point that’s been overlooked in media responses to the GOP slamming Kamala as a “DEI hire.” Most commentators protested by enumerating Kamala’s accomplishments—which for sure is necessary, as apparently lots of people, questioned on the street by reporters, have no idea who she is or what she’s done. But Lawrence reminded us that ALL Vice-Presidential picks have been “DEI hires” in that some form of “diversity”—whether ideological, geographical, or racial (e.g. Obama’s choice of white-guy Biden to “round out” his ticket) has ALWAYS figured in to the choices. The MSNBC panel didn’t pursue that point, but I think it gets at a deep truth (perhaps considered too subtle or “academic” for prime time tv) about what is normalized (e.g. white guy) as the default choice (no matter what “diversity” considerations figure in) and what is seen as “other” (e.g. Woman, Black) and so therefore OF COURSE must be a version of affirmative action. If Kamala chooses a white man as her Vice-President (as she likely will) will that be seen as a “diversity hire”? Of course not.

They got away with this kind of stuff in 2016. Then, the charge was “playing the woman card.” And it wasn’t just Trump. Bernie Sander’s supporters were right on board:

“Voting for her because she is a woman—which she reminds us of, ad nauseam, is . . . sexist.”

“It is ridiculously sexist to vote for Hillary because she’s a woman. That is a tactic the Republicans tried and thank- fully failed at in 2008.”

It was just as absurd in 2016 as it is now (even more absurd, considering how well-known Hillary’s accomplishments were—or should have been) to brand such a highly qualified public servant as running on her gender. But young Democratic women may not have realized that they were putting themselves in league with Donald Trump—at least on that issue. They were mostly concerned with setting themselves apart from “old-style” feminists like Gloria Steinem and Madeline Albright, who they viewed as “shaming” those who didn’t immediately get behind Hillary’s campaign. They took Albright to task early in the primaries when, during a Clinton rally in New Hampshire, she said that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” That line, which she had been trotting out at women’s conventions since 2006, was such an old feminist chestnut that it had been memorialized on Starbuck’s coffee cups. But if you didn’t know the history behind it, and didn’t realize it was a quotation—rather than a pronouncement specially formulated for the non-Hillary supporter--you could easily take it as a nasty slam. And Sanders supporters did. They interpreted it as “telling them how to vote” and suggesting they weren’t good feminists for supporting a man.

Sanders himself tacitly endorsed these criticisms, “doubling down, as Katha Pollitt noted, on the “idiotic quip by his surrogate Killer Mike (‘A uterus doesn’t qualify you to be president of the United States’)” with the pledge: ‘No-one has ever heard me say, “Hey guys, let’s stand together, vote for a man.” I would never do that, never have.’”

Kamala, at least, won’t have to deal with that from a fellow Democrat. And I suspect that after Dobbs and the draconian legislative decisions that followed, “women’s issues” aren’t seen as quite so marginal to “more basic” concerns as they were in 2016. Then, encouraged by Bernie Sanders (who called Planned Parenthood “establishment”), reproductive choice was set against “economic” and “working class” issues. Now, it’s generally recognized that they are thoroughly intertwined.

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The Deeper Meanings of “Childless Cat Ladies”

Kamala Harris had both her stepdaughter and her husband’s first wife coming out publicly to defend her against the idiocy of J.D. Vance’s comments that the country is being run by “childless cat ladies” like Kamala who are “miserable in their own lives” and have “no direct stake in America.”

Kirsten and Ella Emhoff protested that Kamala wasn’t “childless”:

Kirsten Emhoff: “For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”

Ella Emhoff: ‘How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like cole and I? I love my three parents”

Jennifer Anniston, on her part, stood up for women who tried to get pregnant and couldn’t: “I truly cannot believe this is coming from a potential VP. All I can say is … Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day and will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.”

Others protested against the slur on childlessness itself. Tee-shirts declaring pride over the choice to not have children and clever memes have been everywhere. As a Tudorphile, here’s my favorite:

These protests, as justified as they are, stay on the literal level. But whether intentional or not, Vance’s image of “childless cat ladies” (a category within which he includes Pete Buttigieg) has metaphorical and historical “resonances” (I so hate that word, but what else would work here?) in notions about what’s “natural” and not and the dangers posed by those that stray outside the norm. The woman without children is an aberration, even (in some cultural contexts) a monstrosity. Elizabeth I’s childlessness was not seen so much as an impediment to her ability to rule as a mark of suspect “manliness.” This of course put her in a double bind. To be kingly, it was necessary to disown the “weak and feeble” female body. But at the same time, to be not female enough is to invite suspicions and accusations of being “unnatural.”

She and her advisors were constantly creating images and ideas to reassure the nation of her maternal nature—but lavished on England rather than biological children. The strategy was to transform the literal into the metaphorical. So, the reproductive body, which her father Henry VIII had associated with the ability to bring forth male heirs—a conception that cast both her mother Anne Boleyn and her own self as lacking—was recast by Elizabeth as embracing the mothering of her subjects. (If you find this interesting, I have a whole stack on Elizabeth I: }

Royal Bodies Part I

The “cat” part adds another dimension to the imagery of the childless, unnatural woman. Who has cats rather than children? Why witches, of course—who also happened, as the midwives that they actually often were, to challenge male dominion over pregnancy and birth.

Hillary wasn’t childless, but….hmmm….why only one? And didn’t she have a cat called “boots”?

OK, so maybe the cat/witch things is a stretch. I admit it.

However, the notion that Hillary was a witch/bitch isn’t. I won’t even start to unpack all the associations that made her an target of that imagery, but the idea that she was encroaching on territory where she didn’t belong, “leaning in” to aspire to a job that wasn’t rightfully hers, behaving like a bossy, castrating, wicked creature was certainly part of the Hillary-derangement syndrome.

Why end this week with Hillary? In many ways, what Hillary encountered as the first major-party woman candidate for President is a measure both of how different what Kamala faces may be—as a Black woman, in a country that has already gone through the defeat of one woman, that now knows what it’s got coming if Trump is elected, and many other differences—but also what has persisted.

P.S. I hope you’ll check in on

John Halbrooks

”Personal Canon Formation” on Wednesday. I’ll be doing a guest stack on adaptations of Jane Austen’s Emma, with particular attention to Amy Heckerling’s “Clueless” and Autumn de Wilde’s “Emma.”