During World War II, an issue of a D.C. comic book featuring Wonder Woman for President must certainly have provoked the imagination of her young fans. Battling evil and looking to right the world’s wrongs, did she inspire a generation of girls to enter politics?
Almost 30 years later an updated, more ferocious image of Wonder Woman running for President graced the cover of the inaugural issue of Ms. Magazine in 1972. And now, another 30 years on, in this election year it is clear that even Wonder Woman would face a steep uphill battle to be the first woman President of the United States.
The attacks on Senator Hillary Clinton have peeled back the pleasant “gender neutral” façade of American politics and revealed its dismal under-layers of sexism. Legal Momentum does not endorse candidates, but does endorse women's full participation in the electoral process, as voters as well as candidates. Consider below four of the more revealing aspects of how sexism has defined and heightened opposition to Clinton's campaign.
1.
What Are You Wearing?
Pantsuits, pink suits, headbands and haircuts -- all have played leading roles throughout the decades of Clinton commentary, starting during her time as First Lady of Arkansas. When coverage of politics resembles a fashion week runway show, no woman can win. And while it may be simply inane or simple-minded for the press to comment so frequently on a First Lady’s attire, such commentary becomes truly chauvinist when used to define a Senator and serious presidential candidate.
When Clinton strayed from what the Washington Post disparages as her standard “desexualized uniform” of a black pantsuit, it set off a maelstrom of twitter that culminated in “cleavage-gate.” Deteriorating into frat-boy inspired political commentary, one far-right blog even referred to Clinton’s Senate testimony on C-Span as a “boob-shot.”
2.
Your Mama
In a classic your-mother’s-your-pimp insult, television journalist David Shuster commented on MSNBC that Chelsea Clinton was “sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way” by campaigning for her mother. Huh? The only candidate whose off-spring have not hit the parental campaign trail are the estranged Giuliani brood. Ironically, Chelsea was sporting a black pant suit in the video accompanying the whorish commentary. Stay tuned for more from MSNBC, the station that brings you Chris Matthews' endless tirades, which include calling Clinton a "she devil" and "witchy."
3. Why Are You “Crying?”
Candidate Clinton “welled up” at a New Hampshire campaign event and by the end of the day several news outlets falsely described her as having been “in tears” (no need to pass the tissues, there were no actual tears). By Day Two her display of “emotion” was criticized as a sign of her weakness, and simultaneously condemned as manipulative “crocodile tears” and part of an underhanded plot to play the gender card. Welling-up had not received this much attention since Congresswoman Pat Schroeder shed a few actual tears as she withdrew from the presidential race in 1987. Frustrating that twenty years later the theme song for women in politics remains Big Girls Don’t Cry?
4. Why are You Screeching?
Her opponents constantly call her “shrill.” But likewise her supporters comment negatively on her tone of voice. “Just hearing her voice, I get, like, agitated,” one self-proclaimed former supporter told the New York Times. On primary day a relative confesses to me: “I was going to vote for her but I got in the booth and I just thought about her voice.”
While women throughout time have been told in the public and private sector that they just don’t “sound” authoritative enough, never has more been at stake over the pitch of one’s voice. A female voice can give directions over a GPS system in luxury cars and update us in the New York City Subway system, yet remains too “screechy” to be Commander in Chief?
Wonder Woman can you come save us -- or do we have to wait another 30 years?