What woman presidential candidates are facing (Opinion) - CNN - 0 views
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The 2020 presidential election marks the first time more than two women have competed in the Democratic or Republican primaries, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Democratic congresswomen Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have all thrown their hats in the ring. And Marianne Williamson, a bestselling author and a spiritual counselor to Oprah, is also running.
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Research indicates that voters may unknowingly discriminate against female candidates for president because a woman has never held the position, and therefore a woman won't appear to be a "fit" for the role. Scholars call this the gender-incongruency hypothesis. For example, studies have shown that female candidates don't do worse than men when they run for local and state-wide office, but they don't fare as well when they run for president.
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In a 2007 study published in the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology, when students were given identical resumes of candidates who they were told were running for president -- a position which, of course, has never been held by a woman -- they judged the candidate to have more presidential potential and to have had a better career when the candidate was named Brian than when the person was named Karen. But when students were shown resumes of candidates running for Congress -- where women already hold seats -- they didn't judge Brian more positively than Karen.
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Manne also reported in the book that women are less likely to be perceived as competent. When they are considered competent, they're often disliked and considered polarizing. She said female candidates are also often judged to be untrustworthy "on no ostensible basis" and women's claims are viewed as less credible than claims by men. Then, when women defend themselves from unfair attacks, they're accused of "playing the victim."
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Yet Bernie Sanders -- the frontrunner among declared Democratic candidates -- has also been accused of mistreating his aides, but those allegations don't seem to have gotten the same media attention. One former staffer told the Vermont newspaper Seven Days in 2015 that Sanders was "unbelievably abusive" and claimed "to have endured frequent verbal assaults." The paper reported that others who worked for Sanders also said that "the senator is prone to fits of anger." A spokesperson for Sanders responded to Seven Days and said that Sanders "had very positive relations with people who have worked with him.") And Sanders, in response to the article, told the Des Moines Register, "Yes, I do work hard. Yes, I do demand a lot of the people who work with me. Yes, some people have left who were not happy. But I would say that by and large in my Senate office, in my House office, on my campaigns, the vast majority of people who have worked with me considered that to be a very, very good experience..."
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Ultimately, the solution to women not appearing to fit the role of president because a woman has never been president seems obvious: Voters need to elect a woman president. But, in order for that to happen, even those of us who are eager to empower women may need to rethink how we judge female candidates.