Recent election

Last night on"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced that she will be starting the legal process of running for the Democratic presidential nomination, joining the many other women (Harris, Gabbard, Warren, Gillibrand to name a few) seeking to become the Democratic nominee. While some are ecstatic about the sheer volume of female hopefuls, exclaiming, "this is Hillary's legacy", others fear that they are attesting to the idea that there is no woman "right" for the nomination. Perhaps their concern is valid; every announcement is followed by mass controversy, from Gabbard being too young to Warren being too radical, albeit every candidate (regardless of race, gender, or political affiliation) sparks controversy. Do female candidates spark more than their male counterparts though? We are now back to the question "What role, if any, does gender play in politics?" Personally, I believe that women do spark more controversy, even among democrats and especially for this election. The sad truth is that many worry about a woman's ability to do the job as well or that she would be sexually assaulted while in office; this is a mindset that challenges female candidates in addition to being held to a double standard. Moreover, hundreds of thousands are upset with Trump, making the pressure to find the right nominee to rival him more intense than ever. I know this holds true for me. I would love to see a woman as president in 2020, but I refuse to vote for a candidate solely because of their gender. I'm looking for the "right" first female president and my standards are sky high. To conclude, I pose the question "Can a woman win the 2020 presidential election and, more importantly, will the "right" woman choose to run?

In the recent midterms, there were a record number of women running for office! This reignited the conversation that arouse after the 2016 election: what role does gender play in an election? Are women and men held to different standards? Many Hillary Clinton supporters said that if Clinton acted like Trump during the presidential debates, she would be viewed as overly aggressive and temperamental. I used to hold this belief, but I recently came across a project that made me question the ideas I previously held. The project is called "Her Opponent," and it is a re-staging of excerpts of the 2016 presidential debates with gender-reversed casting. In other words, they act out certain parts of the debates, word for word, with a male actor speaking and acting like Hilary Clinton and a female actor speaking and acting like Donald Trump. These gender-reversed roles force watchers to reevaluate their personal biases and possibly develop a new perspective. I encourage you all to watch this short clip: and comment your reaction! I would love to have a discussion on if/how the video changed your perspective on female leadership.

A new study by University of Buffalo sociologists suggests the answer is yes, indeed. This may be well-tread territory, but we think we need to go there anyway. One reason is what we call the “ tyranny of the shoulds .” The study, entitled “ Equal Opportunity Objectification? The Sexualization of Men and Women on the Cover of Rolling Stone “, will be published in the September issue of the journal Sexuality & Culture . The researchers, Erin Hatton, Ph.D., and Mary Nell Trautner, Ph.D., analyzed covers of Rolling Stone magazine over the past three decades and found that “sexualized representations of both women and men increased, and hypersexualized images of women (but not men) skyrocketed.” They chose Rolling Stone , in particular, because of its long lifespan and because its covers have featured a broad mix of pop culture icons — from celebrities to politicians — of both genders. According to the University of Buffalo News Center , here’s what they had to say about their findings: “In the 2000s,” Hatton says, “there were 10 times more hypersexualized images of women than men, and 11 times more non-sexualized images of men than of women.” “What we conclude from this is that popular media outlets such as Rolling Stone are not depicting women as sexy musicians or actors; they are depicting women musicians and actors as ready and available for sex. This is problematic,” Hatton says, “because it indicates a decisive narrowing of media representations of women. “We don’t necessarily think it’s problematic for women to be portrayed as ‘sexy.’ But we do think it is problematic when nearly all images of women depict them not simply as ‘sexy women’ but as passive objects for someone else’s sexual pleasure.” The problem, the authors said, is that this hypersexuality dominates the cultural representation of what it means to be a woman today. And you’d better believe that hurts us all. Because as much as we claim otherwise, the media often becomes another way by which we measure ourselves. Sure, we know all about photo-shopping and air-brushing, and we know it’s not real. But still: As much as we try not to, we buy into what is presented as a cultural norm. In their study, the authors cite a large body of research that has shown a link between sexualized portrayals of women and violence against them, as well as garden-variety sexual harrassment and, in some men, neanderthal attitudes toward women. They reference studies showing that media images of impossibly perfect and hypersexy women also increase the rates of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction and that such images are also linked to an increase in teen sex. Finally — cruel blow — the authors reference a number of studies that have linked hypersexy images to decreased sexual satisfaction among women as well as men. Scary, right? Sure, those may be worst-case scenarios. But at the very least, there’s this: When we are bombarded by increasingly sexualized images peeking out at us from every newstand and/or iPad, another bullet point goes onto the “should” list. You know what we mean: There are the big bad societal shoulds, of course, and there are also the shoulds you hear in your best friends’ voices, your mom’s, your significant other’s. TV and magazines remind us we should be thinner and happier — and apparently, smoking hot as well. We may call every bit of it out as unholy nonsense, but still, is there a part of us, deep inside, that believes that this is what it means to be a woman today? To Have It All? Back in the day, the archetype for the woman who “had it all” was exemplified by the ad campaign for Enjoli, which billed itself as the “eight-hour perfume for the 24-hour woman.” The classic seventies-era television commercial featured a woman who morphed from housewife to businesswoman to sex kitten wife, all the while singing: “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, ever let you forget you’re a man, cause I’m a woman .” An impossibly ridiculous role model, from any number of aspects. But let’s look at just one thing. She was pictured in a bathrobe, a business suit, and finally — as the sexy chick — in a high-necked evening gown that exposed nothing but her arms. We can’t help wondering what, if anything, she’d be wearing if that ad were made today. Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannon-kelley/post_2305_b_926159.html I find it very interesting