By Maria Tulli
There has been a lot of discussion
about Hillary Clinton’s gender. A lot. Calls by supporters asking people to
vote for her because she is a woman.
Outrage by others admonishing those who do so for some “reverse” sexism. There
have been comparisons between Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher, based
exclusively on gender, while there is a lack of comparisons between Clinton and
men politicians – comparisons which would make more sense based on policies,
experience and ideology.[i] We
could say gender is featuring as a core factor in these Democratic primaries.
However, it is not truly at the core, but rather spotlighted on one side. While
Secretary Clinton’s gender may be a locus of attention, her opponent’s is not.
In an arena of gender scrutiny Bernie Sanders remains the unmarked, the
un-gendered. This un-gendering has enabled Sanders to act both progressively
and radically.
To be clear, I am not arguing that
Clinton is secretly socialist or pursues moderate policies only reluctantly.
Hillary Clinton is substantially
right of Bernie Sanders and has made conscious choices to get there. However, I
am arguing that whether or not she
desired to pursue more radical political action or rhetoric, she is unable to
do so because she is a woman. The
flipside of this, of course, is that Bernie Sanders is enabled to do so because
he is a man.
There is no doubt that it is important
that Hillary Clinton is a woman. Even if it does not truly matter to her
politics or capabilities, her presentation as a politician is built around her
gender.
But it also matters that Bernie Sanders
is a man.
One site this masculine privilege has
been most apparent is in Sanders’ views on U.S. foreign policy. He has been
vocal about the value of peace, emphasizing diplomacy over unilateral action
and US military aggression. Although he has been accused of naivety, these
accusations have not been gendered in a way that would impact a woman, but have
rather, been based on his lack of experience. A critique of his professional, not personal capabilities.
In response to these critiques, the Sanders campaign has attempted to center
discussion of judgment over experience, reasserting personal characteristics as
the highest value of a potential Commander in Chief. This discussion of
judgment has favoured reason, a commonly associated trait of masculinity, over
experience. These attempts to reframe cooperative foreign policy as reasonable demonstrate
three things.
The first is that Sanders can be recast
as rational in order to resist charges of naivety that threaten to feminize
him. By emphasizing Sanders’ ability to make rational judgment in order to
undercut Clinton’s advantage in experience, these messages reassert Sanders as
the masculine norm and push Clinton outside the realm of rationality, in effect
re-feminizing her.
Second, sidestepping charges of naiveté
has been relatively easier for Sanders than it would have been for Clinton if
the situation were reversed. A feminized trait, being naïve carries obvious
negative and feminized connotations, such as being childish, exploitable, and
gentle. These attributes are all projected on women political actors. These
traits have also acted, and continue to act, as the rationale for the exclusion
of women from public arenas more broadly.
Third, it shows just how slippery the
terrain is for women to engage in foreign policy and other masculinized policy
areas and how easy it is to undermine women as leaders, or even participants,
in these areas.
If Secretary Clinton, or an alternative
woman candidate, were advocating for Sanders’ foreign policy platform,
commentary would, almost certainly, tie these perspectives to her gender. A
charge of being naïve would carry much more weight levied against Clinton than
it does against Sanders and precludes her from advocating for non-violent,
non-interventionist actions, whether or not she desired to pursue these paths.
For women who endeavor to pursue peaceful
foreign policy platforms, naivety is tied to underlying assumptions that women
are naturally inclined towards peace. Feminist security studies have critiqued
the ways this assumption has limited the degree to which women are taken
seriously as political leaders.[ii]
Questions concerning women’s capacities to act as Commander in Chief abound in
mainstream and social media.
In effort to combat these prejudices,
Clinton has in many cases distanced
herself from feminized roles. Many have critiqued her for this dismissal of domestic
labour’s value. However, these critiques fail to account for the fact that men
politicians, including Bernie Sanders, have never had to re-affirm their place
outside the home. They do not have to publically disavow their connections to
masculinized behaviour or identity. They do not have to negotiate a tension
between being masculine, without becoming masculinized. Bernie Sanders is able
to advocate for international diplomacy and cooperation without attending to
assumptions about how his gender informs his intention to constrain the use of
violence.
Debates occurring throughout this
primary season have both implicitly and explicitly evoked gender. This is
extremely evident surrounding each candidate’s foreign policy platform. While
the gendering of Hillary Clinton’s contention for the presidential candidacy
has been discussed at length, Bernie Sanders’ has not. The de-gendering of
Sanders is a demonstration of how sexism pervades these discussions.
Maria Tulli is an MA student in political theory and gender studies in the Department of Political
Science at the University of Alberta. Her current research examines resistance
to pipeline development in British Columbia, focusing on how such resistance is
framed and represented in mainstream media.
[i] Doyle, Sady. (n.d.). Progressive [Blog Post]. Retrieved
from http://sadydoyle.tumblr.com/post/138860699828/progressive
[ii] Charlesworth, Hilary.
(2008). Are Women Peaceful? Reflections on the Role of Women in Peace-Building.
Feminist Legal Studies 16,
347-361.
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