My Argument and The Proposed Solution to Women's Lack of Support in Politics

Since the beginning of time, women have been looked down upon, seen as the less competent gender due to the sexism and traditional gender roles. When Pat Schroeder( Former US Rep. of Colorado), announced her running as a main running mate against her male counter parts, she was deemed to be "emotionally incompetent, emotionally unfit to be president". Such a thing is not said about male politicians, regardless of their sexual assault allegations, blatant racism, sexism, lies and greed. Though by the time of the 1960s and 1970s, traditional gender roles of women needed to have children and tend to the home started to shift due to working women and the counterculture movement. The first woman to run for president almost 100 years before. The first woman to run for president was Victoria Woodhull in 1872. She did not get much support due to her extramarital affairs with married men being sensationalized more than her politics. This may seem like a big deal to some but, male presidents like JFK, Trump and Clinton still were elected into the role of president, despite their extramarital affairs. Due to the sexism in politics, women often face criticism of their male counterparts. Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman to seek the presidential party nomination, the Republican nomination. She lost in every state of the country due to her McCarthyism views. Another standout as a female politician was Shirley Chisholm, she was the first African American to seek the presidential nomination, many voters did not support her. Black women were her main supporters. She knew she wasn’t going to win at that unsegregated but still prejudiced America time period but ,she ran to create a “ coalition” of free thinkers to get the attention of the Democratic Convention. White women and black men justified not voting for her because they were sure McGovern would win against Nixon. Nixon won the presidency with a landslide. Chisholm was a start to many women running for the presidency in the past 40 years.("'Unbought And Unbossed': Why Shirley Chisholm Ran For President'') The most recent loss a woman has encountered with the job of president was the 2016 presidential election of Hillary Clinton. She lost against her opponent Trump due to not the majority of 227 electoral votes. The electoral college consists of predominantly white men and has been used as an institution of supremacy to keep women and people of color out of office. They are known for not supporting pro-woman laws like pro-choice laws. In her post election memoir What Happened, she explained how the media covered her email controversy over her politics. She also said her aloofness due her 2016 to some of America’s public like poor whites in the Indiana, single black moms on the West Side of Chicago and even the affluent communities led to her to not make many true connections for voters to vote for her and if they did it wasn’t enough. The excess of media coverage on her email controversy from her time being the Secretary of State led many Americans to not learn more about her views, or only see her as Clinton's wife who was running for president. Clinton also previously lost the election to Obama during the 2008 election. Both of these elections led to political scientists to scratch their heads if modern day semi progressive America was truly ready for a female leader. Professor Jennifer Lawless states in Sexism and Gender Bias in Election 2008: A More Complex Path for Women in Politics explains the disparities of male and female presidential candidates lie in the candidate eligibility pool. The difference of political ambition shows that the current scope of politics has continued to discourage and shut out many women from pursuing the field within itself. Through Hilary’s past two elections, it has been a prominent belief that women should vote for a woman candidate. The idea of sex choice when people vote is not new one. Gender will possibly always be a determining factor when voting. Gender stereotypes affect the manner in which the media assess women candidates and their male counterparts, painting an unfair picture of them to the American public. (Lawless) Clinton was noticed using her masculine traits in her personality to discuss the issues that hurt women. (Lee, and Lim) It is common to see most female politicians to act in their masculine traits because the presidency has been identified with masculinity for so long. However, for us to truly seek equality we must take gendered identity away from politics. We must attempt to dismantle masculinity politics and truly admit all women do not care about the rights of women. Just because women have the commonality of being women, the current masculinity attached to politics keeps many women from being involved and so does their demographic. The current feminist movement would make most think all women are on the same side, but as far as voters black women have more of a tendency to vote based on their own views, while white women vote according to their spouse's views. 53 percent of white women who voted in the 2016 presidential election voted for Trump, a man who is openly homophobic, racist, xenephobic and sexist.(O’Neal) Though Clinton was a white woman running, many white feminists voted for her counterpart. White feminism failed. We need to have open dialogues on politics without a gendered label or tendency to disagree with people due to views, we have to be honest about who we are supporting. We cannot hide especially as women behind feminism without admitting there's a difference between white feminism and POC feminism. During the most recent women’s march, women of all backgrounds supported the white feminism movement but during minority protests and alliances, they didn't show up. Women of color are willing to wear the cape and be an ally but don’t receive the same support. Feminism needs a new representation to fit modern day in order to get a female president.