Ditz

Issue date: 12/6/07 Section: Vanities

Media Credit: creoleindc.typepad.com/.../index.html The Hilary Nutcracker

"I've been called some names I'd be embarrassed to repeat in public. I've learned that my hairstyles and fashion choices provide endless fodder for public discussion and dissection. You know sometimes I'll walk by and see somebody on TV talking about what I'm wearing and they will have imbued it with great meaning, 'She chose that color to send a certain message.' I did? I've been told to smile more, I've been told to smile less. I've been told to speak more loudly, I've been told to speak more softly. I've been told to not speak very much at all."
- Hillary Clinton

The upcoming presidential election of 2008 is the most diverse election we have seen thus far in the United States. With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as major presidential candidates, we are beginning to see political and societal shifts in power, taking the focus off of the typical white, middle-class male and shifting it to minorities. Since this is the first time an African American and a woman have conducted prominent presidential campaigns, it is proving to test the waters in society standards as well as media focus. The range of possibilities for this presidential office have yet to be explored, and we, as a society, seem to be holding back those unconventional candidates because we are scared of the changes they may bring.

The revolutionary "Vote or Die" campaigns were geared towards our generation starting in 2004, and while we may see an increase in our political participation, we have yet to use our participation to effect media, especially the media attention that presidential candidates receive. We are shifting from hard news journalism to more informal forums such as YouTube and Myspace and while we are creating a dialogue with our peers and the candidates, we are still upholding the gender stereotypes that have been around for years. We are being creative in how to get and send out our information, but still holding back those who are thinking out of the box.

Society equates our president with masculine qualities such as being bold, rational, and composed. If a woman appears docile, fragile, or compassionate at any moment, she is seen as too feminine and therefore unfit for office. According to political scientist Ruth Mandel, "if you're [a woman] assertive and aggressive enough to do the job, you're unfeminine and therefore unacceptable. If you're not aggressive enough, you can't do the job-and, in either case, good bye." This balance between masculine and feminine qualities is a harsh double standard placed on women in leadership, but this is the reality we are living in when it comes to deciding the ruler of our free world; damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Both Geraldine Ferraro, a potential vice president alongside Walter Mondale in 1984, and Elizabeth Dole, a presidential candidate in 2000, experienced profound negative media attention compared to their male competitors. Almost 30% of Ferraro and over 40% of Dole's media coverage referenced their clothing, make-up, hair or other clearly feminine classifications. Specifically, Dole's media attention was focused on her emotions rather than her political viewpoints, which suggested to the American people that Dole was weak, and therefore incapable of being president.

Media continues to help pin up the No Girls Allowed sign on the ultimate tree (read: white) house, and we applaud them instead of tearing down the sign.

Like Dole and Ferraro, Hillary Clinton, a strong candidate for the upcoming 2008 presidential election, has had her fair share of gendered media attention. In 2000 when Clinton was announced the winner of the Senate in New York, the New York Times ran the headline: "First Ladies Race for the Ages: 62 Countries and 6 Pantsuits." Later, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote about how Clinton "whittled her figure down to a fighting size 8." Both of these stories cover Clinton as a model woman, not a successful Senator and role model for women.

In addition to Clinton's clothing and weight, hard news has dedicated much time to combining unflattering pictures of Clinton to present a hideous person who cannot sing, and therefore is deemed unpatriotic, and cannot smile properly, so she is therefore evil and not genuine. The more the media picks at and publicizes these feminine stereotypes of a women being dainty, pretty, and thin, the less women will be taken seriously in leadership roles, and the less progress we will make towards equality as a society.

In our world of all-nighters and caffeine fixes, not many of us have time to sit down and read the paper daily. Even if we do have the time, we often abandon it because we are too focused on getting our media fix on-line. We have to get what we want, where we want it and when we want it. Whether that be through Myspace, YouTube or other similar forums, we want the information, but we also want to laugh.

Congratulations to Clinton for recognizing the millennial generation and reaching us through media on our own terms. One of her particular tactics was a video post on YouTube asking us, the YouTube community, to help pick her campaign song. To my surprise, her request had an abundance of negative response and we called her stupid for asking us to help. So we vote if you're "hotornot", and we perform near-death stunts to post videos on-line, but we call Clinton an evil, dumb, bitch for asking us to participate in her campaign? Why boycott the opportunity to be part of the conversation, even if it is on a small level?

In theory, as a generation of self-satisfiers, Clinton met our demand head-on. She and her campaign managers used this innovative type of media as an opportunity to recruit the young generation of voters. However, instead of being congratulatory for her efforts, we mocked Clinton for trying to be the "cool" one, and deemed her as an incompetent woman and a hopeless candidate next to her male competitors in the upcoming election.

In other homemade videos, not responding to her song request, we call her a "bitch", a "whore", a "lesbian", and an "unfit mother and wife." Notice all four categories focus specifically on Clinton's gender and reprimand her for stepping out of and challenging the traditional pristine woman roles. Our generation is using our fingertips, new technology, and voices to help reiterate that women have their place in life, and it is not in the White House.

There is one appalling YouTube video, in particular, where a man proclaims his unconditional hatred towards Clinton. This contributor, Artamis1982, repeatedly calls her a "bitch" and a "whore", but gives no substantial reason to back up claims.

He expresses that the portion of the public who are planning to vote for Clinton, solely because she is a woman and will be the first woman president, have to be out of their minds. He later goes on to explain that if "this bitch" is elected president, humanity has no hope. He continues to repeat this offensive language over and over, not towards Clinton as a potential presidential candidate, but towards Clinton as a woman. His hateful and derogatory language directed towards Clinton capitalizes on the traditional, socially-constructed idea that women are not fit to be president of the United States.

There are limitless additional videos that mock Clinton as a woman and give little or no credit to her political views as a serious presidential candidate. Many focus on her clothing, her personal appearance, or her sexual orientation. There is endless media attention both in hard news and YouTube that focus on her laugh, referring to it as a "cackle". Some videos focus on her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres and portray Clinton as a lesbian. Other videos focus on her clothing and personal appearance by altering her clothes to either a suit-and-tie, conforming to a dominant man, or in a bikini with cleavage, conforming to a sex object. None of this media attention has anything to do with her being an unfit president; rather it pinpoints Hillary Clinton as being an unfit woman. While her male counterpoints are getting media attention about their policy positions and priorities, Clinton is getting attention about her appearance and personality.

Hard news media may be talking about Clinton's size 8 waist and wardrobe, but our new social networking phenomenons are taking extreme measures to capitalize on her feminine traits, or lack there-of. As twenty-something self-satisfiers, we are tagging thousands of pictures of ourselves, making our relationship issues known to the world, and posting personal videos of what we think and how we feel. We are becoming our own journalists. But why, if we have all these innovative ideas, new technology, and power are we saying the same thing and holding up the same stereotypes that have been around forever?

By distorting pictures to enhance Clinton's cleavage or putting her face on a man's body and laughing about it, we are not only upholding gender stereotypes, we are creating new, often worse ones. We are sending more serious and offensive messages about Clinton, and women in general. We are having a conversation with America about gender and a woman's inability to ever be our leader. Media has always used gendered language, but this new type is using hateful pictures and voiceovers to put all women down, and forever keep them below white, middle-class men. We have the opportunity at our fingertips to revolutionize media, but we are not making sufficient use of our power.

We need to step back, look at the big picture, and tear down the No Girls Allowed sign once and for all.

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