That lethal combo of sexism, ageism and looksism …
by digby
To be honest, I’m not sure why anyone should have to study whether women’s looks affect their ability to win in politics since it seems so obvious to me, but I suppose it’s a good idea to get some empirical data to back up what anyone can see with their own eyes. The problem is when the political scientists get the data wrong, especially when it comes to long standing issues of equity. Here’s one example:
In a post at the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, two researchers claim to have a study that finds press coverage of candidates’ appearance is not a problem for women candidates. But their data and research is not available to the media or anyone else to evaluate their work.
Our Name It. Change It. project has published research that finds such coverage does serious damage to candidates who are women. Our complete research is available here.
In their Wonkblog piece, Danny Hayes and Jennifer Lawless make inaccurate and sweeping generalizations about the Name It. Change It. research. We are therefore issuing this statement to correct the assertions of these researchers and restate our confidence in the research conducted for Name It. Change It. And we challenge Hayes and Lawless to make public their research methodology and data.
Name It. Change It. is a groundbreaking project of The Women’s Media Center, one of the nation’s premiere media accountability organizations and She Should Run, award winning national experts in addressing the barriers that keep women from serving in public office. Tracking and responding to sexist media coverage of women candidates and public leaders, Name It. Change It. also generates and disseminates groundbreaking research conducted by Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting, two firms with experience both researching women candidates and working with real women’s campaigns.
Danny Hayes and Jennifer Lawless, recently wrote that “women don’t pay a higher price than men for coverage of their appearance.” An American University press release touts Hayes’ and Lawless’ new research as “refuting a Name It. Change It. study concluding candidate appearance plays a significant role in voter candidate support.”
In their comments challenging our findings, Hayes and Lawless got much of our research wrong. Specifically:
They missed that Name It. Change It. had a control group, which meant we could correctly identify which variable in our experiment was having the effect.
In addition, in critiquing the appearance coverage Name It. Change It. tested as “unrealistic,” Lawless and Hayes missed that all of Name It. Change It.’s media quotes about women candidates were actual quotes pulled from media.
In addition, there are flaws in the methodology of their previous study on appearance-based coverage, voiding their conclusions that such coverage of women is “rare” and no more frequent than similar coverage of male candidates.
Of course appearance is a problem for women in politics in ways it isn’t for men. Look around you. It’s a problem for women in everything in a way it isn’t for men.
Name It Change It, went to the trouble to prove it and was challenged with shoddy work that was, unfortunately, featured prominently on the Washington Post website.You can read their whole rebuttal here and it’s worth taking the time to do it. I’ve worked with some of the people involved such as Celinda Lake and I know for a fact that they are of the highest integrity. Moreover, they have no good reason to tilt this data — why would they? It would be liberating for women candidates if they didn’t have this extra burden to worry about.
This whole subject reminds me of the obtuseness of much of the commentary we heard about Hillary Clinton in 2008. One of the most memorable being this one:
Is It Sexist to Discuss Hillary’s Wrinkles?
Prompted by an unflattering photo of the 61-year-old senator that appeared on Drudge, commentators are discussing not only how Sen. Hillary Clinton looks in that shot (you can view it HERE), but whether the discussion is sexist or appropriate at all.
Rush Limbaugh started much of this conversation, saying “Americans are addicted to physical perfection, thanks to Hollywood and thanks to television. …There is this thing in this country that, as you age — and this is particularly, you know, women are hardest hit on this, and particularly in Hollywood — America loses interest in you, and we know this is true because we constantly hear from aging actresses, who lament that they can’t get decent roles anymore, other than in supporting roles that will not lead to any direct impact, yay or nay, in the box office.”
Noting that “the presidency ages the occupants of that office rapidly,” Limbaugh asked, “Will Americans want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis? And that woman, by the way, is not going to want to look like she’s getting older, because it will impact poll numbers. It will impact perceptions.”
Yeah. Women’s looks don’t matter at all. Even when we see this lovely piece on the front of the New York Times just this past week-end:
Stuart Stevens, the top strategist for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, declared to an audience of reporters at a breakfast last month that electing Hillary Rodham Clinton would be like going back in time. “She’s been around since the ’70s,” he said.
At a conservative conference earlier in the year, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, ridiculed the 2016 Democratic field as “a rerun of ‘The Golden Girls,’ ” referring to Mrs. Clinton and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is 70.
And Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, seizing on the Fleetwood Mac song that became a Clinton family anthem, quipped to an audience in Washington, “If you want to keep thinking about tomorrow, maybe it’s time to put somebody new in.”
The 2016 election may be far off, but one theme is becoming clear: Republican strategists and presidential hopefuls, in ways subtle and overt, are eager to focus a spotlight on Mrs. Clinton’s age. The former secretary of state will be 69 by the next presidential election, a generation removed from most of the possible Republican candidates.
Again, I’m reminded of one of the more pungent statements someone wrote in my blog comments back in 2008: “her neck looks like a folded quilt. Yuck.”
It’s not that men aren’t hit from time to time by ageism or looksism. It happened to Bob Dole and it happens to Chris Christie, just to pick two examples. But the lethal combination of ageism, lookisim and sexism that a woman like Hillary Clinton will be facing is far more potent than anything those fellows had to endure.
You don’t need a study to prove it, but NameItChangeIt did. The numbers don’t lie and neither do my own eyes.
*By the way, Ed Kilgore does a nice job with that New York Times report on the GOPs strategy to run against Hillary the old hag. Is the GOP really going to be able to position itself as the party of young hipsters? Really?
Update: Sure enough, here’s a perfect example.
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