What It Will Take to Elect Madam President

Vice President Kamala Harris is the likely presidential nominee of the Democratic party. While some things have changed since 2016, when Hillary Clinton was the nominee (including the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the emergence of the #MeToo movement, and the election of the largest number of women to Congress in history), some stubborn biases against a woman for president persist. ​​For Harris to become this country’s first Madam President, her supporters, and members of the media, will have to be aware of and overcome long-entrenched bias and conventions that have proven to be barriers for women who have run in the past.

Since 1996 I have been researching and writing about women in politics with an emphasis on the question: What are the obstacles to electing a woman president of the United States?

Voters hold women candidates to much different, often sexist standards, than they have for men. The current scenario — Kamala Harris replacing a male candidate who is not viable — is in some ways similar to that of Kathy Hochul, who became governor of New York after Andrew Cuomo resigned, and ran for reelection soon thereafter. She is the first woman to lead New York, and if successful, Harris would be the first female president in the United States. Could this “path through replacement” be the most promising route to electing our first woman president? I suspect that the abbreviated campaign season could work to Harris’ advantage. It may give haters less time to develop hateful, false narratives and for them to take hold. Also, voters tend to vote for change, and she represents a change from what we all thought the election would be: old white man versus old white man.

The long-entrenched history of white male leadership in the United States has had a powerful hold on the imagination of the electorate. Electing someone who is not white and male has proven so far to be stubbornly insurmountable. Because presidential politics is so visual, running as an incumbent vice president may be the most viable path because the candidate has experience adjacent to the presidential stage. This follows the theory that if we can see it we can believe it. Some studies even suggest that TV shows like Scandal have led to more political engagement by women.

This country’s progress toward electing Madam President has been glacial, but Harris’ candidacy is a good illustration that when more women run, more women will win, even if an individual woman candidate does not win a particular race. If Harris had not run for president in 2020, she likely would not have been tapped to be Biden’s vice president, and she would not now be the likely nominee. This is why getting more women to run for political office at every level is a successful strategy for electing women. Even if she does not win, she is put on the radar as a person who can fulfill a future office.

As the Harris campaign ignites, her supporters and members of the media should be aware that:

1. Voters must expand their view of what a president looks like. Because the model has always been male in the United States, we need to see that it can be female, too. The late congresswoman and presidential hopeful Pat Schroeder told me that people often said to her: “You don’t look like the president.” How could she if the person making this observation was reflecting on what presidents have always looked like (men)? In 2020, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s electability was constantly questioned, and Amy Klobuchar, also a presidential candidate in 2020, was framed as mean. These are ways to count women out of the presidential arena. Michele Bachmann, who ran for president in 2012, was featured on the cover of Timemagazine with her eyes looking entranced with the headline “The Queen of Rage.” These types of characterizations are not aligned with the traditional image of the president of the United States.
2. The press must discuss the credentials of women candidates in the same way men’s credentials are discussed. In research I conducted with Ted Sheckels and Diana Carlin, we found that women are expected to have more experience as elected officials than men. The research, which resulted in the publication of the book Gender and the American Presidency, examined the careers and media coverage of nine women who “on paper” could be president. Gendered coverage and bias, such as being perceived as unlikable or too emotional, likely stalled their advancement. Male candidates are rarely judged negatively for these traits.
3. We must emphasize the importance of “impact” rather than “charisma.” We would elect qualified male and female candidates if we asked, “Does the candidate have impact?” and stopped expecting them to be as charismatic as movie stars. They are politicians who are supposed to move our country forward, and the press and public need to recognize that. Women suffer from the assessment that they “lack charisma” more often than men, perhaps because what people see as charisma in a woman does not match most people’s ideas about what it means to be “presidential.” The Oxford dictionary defines charisma as including warmth and charm. Warmth and charm are not requisites for strong leadership, and when a woman exhibits them, she is likely to be perceived as kind and warm instead of commanding and in control, two qualities we seek in presidential leadership. My co-authored study of Elizabeth Dole’s presidential rhetoric in 1999 showed that when she adopted the same courtly style of communication, including moving around the audience, as she did in her 1996 GOP Convention speech to support her then-nominee husband Bob Dole, audiences perceived her as “attractive” and “nice” but not leaderly. University of Pennsylvania communications professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson described this as the double bind for women in politics: They can be feminine or competent, but not both.

The election of more women to the House, and the presence of more women presidential candidates in 2020 than ever before in one election cycle, suggests that biases against women candidates are lessening — yet voters need to be alert to the ways women candidates are undermined.

Voters must ask themselves: Are they assessing a woman’s appearance, voice, laugh, and general public speaking skills more harshly than men’s in the public arena, including the presidency? We have accepted a wide range of rhetorical styles from the many men who have served in all areas of political life, yet we hold women to more elusive standards: a loud laugh, a new hairstyle, clothing style, or a bit more showing of skin might spark an article focused on just that. And that is a distraction to democracy. So much is on the line when we elect politicians to lead, we need to stop focusing on things that don’t matter, like personal style and general appearance.

If the country wants to choose a president from the entire pool of qualified people, how women candidates are written about and discussed needs to change. Media creators and consumers need to be vigilant about racist and gendered coverage and tropes — both explicit and coded. Late congresswoman and 1972 presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm said she faced “two strikes” against her as a candidate: race and gender. Carol Moseley Braun, who ran for president in 2004, observed in 2020: “There are clear signs of progress in recruitment and the public discussion of diverse leadership.”

To make more progress, we need to recognize and call out racist and sexist tropes, refuse to engage in talk about what a candidate looks and sounds like, and have substantive, deliberate discussions about policy stances. We need to accept that a woman candidate can be a woman president, and recognize that women are not a monolith. When we listen to ideas over image, we will likely catch up to many other parts of the world and elect Madam President.