We Are Our Own Gatekeepers

Within the first debate of the 2016 Presidential race, one of the questions asked to the candidates regarded Donald Trump’s statement of Hillary Clinton not having a ‘presidential look’. Considering that I am the politically involved feminist that I am, this statement (and following question) lit a fire within me. My initial thought to the reasoning behind this question was the fact of the inherent patriarchal and misogynistic ideas that one sees within American culture and politics; however, as argued by Ditonto, Hamilton, and Redlawsk in Gender Stereotypes, Information Search, and Voting Behavior in Political Campaigns and Schneider and Bos in Measuring Stereotypes of Female Politicians, there might be another reason behind this idea.

The world of politics for a woman is a difficult one as she has to face, battle, and win a war against an opponent that has historically had the advantage, and it is this idea that one can clearly see the patriarchal domination of politics. However, some of the blocks to a woman’s place in the House, Senate, and Oval Office also come from women themselves. Women are “more likely to support female candidates than men,” but that doesn’t mean they withhold judgement (Ditonto et al. 338). “Women voters continue to focus on a female candidate’s competence, even after she has been vetted through a primary election … male voters… move to focus on her issue positions” (Ditonto et al. 349). Therefore, the statement and subsequent question within the Presidential Debate was in fact more of a desire for an answer from the women than the men of America. Also, “female politicians [do not possess] female stereotypical traits in the same way that these traits are ascribed to women… female politicians are a subtype of women” (Schneider and Bos 260). This causes one to see female politicians with neither the traits of women or men and, therefore, causes them to be “defined more by their deficits than their strengths” (Scneider and Bos 260). Thus, women tend to focus on a female politicians competence and traits (as supported by Ditonto et al.) and this focus is ultimately biased given that female politicians are viewed as not having the beneficial traits of a woman (supported by Schneider and Bos). Women are their own gatekeepers into the world of politics.