Gender Bias in Political Media – An Introduction
Mihika G -
As you can see, this is my first (of many) blog posts. I’m excited to share updates on my research journey as I continue developing my project!
My project surrounds linguistic sexism – the gendered biases embedded within the language we use – in mainstream media when discussing male versus female political figures. Although my project will not focus on the actual election outcomes of gender bias in the media, it is relevant to this idea, because the media is a powerful tool through which opinions are not only shared, but amplified. The widespread association of femininity with a lack of qualifications does not necessarily mean female candidates are immediately seen as incompetent; however, this may result in female candidates needing to work harder than their colleagues to receive the same amount of respect. In this post, I aim to provide an overview for the context and outline of my research.
Trends Shifting with Time
As we progress into the modern era, transitioning from print media to online media, overt gendered criticism of women in male fields shifts to more implicit bias. This is seen with gender-marking, which is direct use of a label to indicate someone’s gender, specifically when female professionals are gender-marked at disproportionately higher rates than their male counterparts. The inherent link between the female gender and the individual’s ability to do their job efficiently demonstrates a difference between the male and female career experience.
Presidential Elections
Even before 2016, where the first female presidential candidate to secure a major party nomination was seen, gendered language had a large impact on federal presidential elections. The majority of masculine-labelled traits were used to describe candidates positively (e.g., “like a man,” “big boy,” etc.), whereas female-labelled traits were largely used in a negative manner (“not a real man,” etc.). Male political opponents would often try to feminize each other, casting the other as not “manly” enough for the position, underlining the assumption that voters prefer a more masculine candidate, as they are seen as more qualified.
The 2024 Election
My research will focus specifically on the 2024 Presidential Election, where there was a female candidate (Kamala Harris) running against a male candidate (Donald Trump). I chose this over the 2016 election because Harris lost the popular vote in addition to the electoral vote; due to the complexity of Clinton’s winning the popular vote, but not the electoral, causing her election loss, I will not be examining this.
Through the duration of this project, as well as beyond, I will be working with the League of Women Voters Metropolitan Phoenix, to develop the impact of how seeing gender bias in the media can affect voters of a similar demographic.
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