Women, Politics, and the Media

In chapter three of Closing the Leadership Gap, Marie Wilson asserts that “women are rarely seen and almost never positioned as leaders by the press” (Wilson 39). I both agree and disagree with this statement because of the way in which Hillary Clinton has recently been portrayed by the media. She is in the paper or on the news at least once every day. This is probably due to the fact that she is a female presidential candidate, but it is interesting how every little thing she does (here is the part of Wilson’s statement that I agree with!) is constantly criticized by the media. She has been “covered less substantively and more personally” than the male candidates (Wilson 37). The media is constantly reminding the American public that Hillary is a woman, which seems to serve as their way of taking away any sort of authority she had even started to establish for herself.

A perfect example of this is the way that the press focused on what Hillary was wearing during one of the first Democratic debates. She was wearing a black v-neck top that hardly showed any of her cleavage at all (Washington Post picture: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902668.html) and the first thing that the press did was attack her outfit. I don’t remember anything being mentioned about what she had said during the debate. As you can see in this political cartoon (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20202692/displaymode/1107/s/1/framenumber/1/), the focus was purely on Hillary’s cleavage. What do you think it will take for women to be seen as more authoritative and more competent than they are seen now?

Another point that Wilson made in the readings for this week was how women need to push and encourage each other to be everything that we can be. Sometimes it seems like we are our own worst enemies. Wilson explains that “if we hold one another back instead of pushing one another forward, we will most certainly stay stuck” (Wilson 70). One of the questions I have about this though is how do we get all women to care about our current unequal position in society? There are many women who don’t see anything wrong with the way that women are constantly degraded and seen as “less than” in our society. How do we get them on our team if they are not willing to help us in the fight?