Four Points on Gender

Here are four thoughts on how gender is playing out in this race:

• WomenForCoakley team member Dr. Nancy Hopkins on unconscious gender biases in voting.
• An e-mailer’s perspective on Joan Vennochi’s Globe column about the Massachusetts Old Boy’s Network and David Bernstein’s  Boston Phoenix‘ response about women benefiting from that network and yet still getting less than 15% of new elected slots.
• Howie Carr ’s Boston Herald column on henpecked husbands.
• Yours truly on the “babe” and “get a room” comments by Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on NECN

For details, keep reading.

1)   Our team member Dr. Nancy Hopkins is having her say on women voting for women at Huffington Post.  She points out that:

Psychologists have long understood the strange fact of unconscious gender bias from studies that show that both men and women slightly undervalue otherwise identical work if they think it was done by a woman. In the last two years they have extended this research to analyze why women, like men, penalize successful women and have difficulty accepting them as leaders. Regardless of the reasons, the reality of the phenomenon persists today.

She says that the United States ranks about 79th in the world in terms of  representation of women in government, and hopes that women (and men) will overcome their unconscious biases to elect Martha Coakley to be our 18th senator.

2)  Joan Vennochi wrote in the Boston Globe about the powerful boys club in Massachusetts politics:

What’s happening [with endorsements] in 2009 is a reminder that in Massachusetts, the definition of progressive politics allows the Democratic political establishment to maintain the highest levels of elective office as a mostly-men’s club.

David S. Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix agreed with Vennochi in part, pointing out that

…of the 40 current Senators who have taken office since the start of 2003, just 5 are women. If they’re getting less than 15% of the new slots, it’s hard to see how the overall gender balance will go up much over time. And it’s hard to argue that a hiring gender ratio of 7-to-1 happens without institutional biases. 

On the other hand, he says, the Old Boys’ Network

worked to the advantage, not the detriment, of Niki Tsongas in 2007 and Hillary Clinton in 2008. Both were on the inside of that network, due to their husbands as well as their own efforts.

In response to that observation, an e-mailer replies that Coakley faces a tougher landscape:

Martha is the first woman around here who has stood on her own ground — her husband is not a politico at all.

3)  Howie Carr’s Boston Herald column testifies to the level of sexism still considered acceptable in politics (amply illustrated earlier by the Ice Queen article.)  Carr said: 

If you want to know which men in your neighborhood are henpecked, check out the houses with the Coakley yard signs out front.

4)  Finally, I’ve got add my two cents about NECN’s post-debate analysis.  Ive tried to let it roll off my back, because Jim Braude and Margery Eagan have done solid, insightful, and fair interviews throughout this campaign, and I don’t believe them to have any sexist intent.  So I hope that if they read this, they will consider it an additional perspective, not a criticism.  Jim Braude said that Coakley and Capuano were so friendly that a person watching the debate with him commented

They should get a room.

There then ensued a long discussion with Alex Beam about his Globe column originally entitled “The Babe Factor,” about which Mum4Martha wrote here.  Eagen concluded that if the general election turned out to be Coakley v. Brown, it  would be a

battle of the babes

Many people will view these comments as being not at all objectionable because they equally rate the sexual desirability and imply the sexual availability of both genders.  However, I would ask journalists to consider that our society still today views sexual availability of men as an enhancing their reputation, whereas for women it demeans their reputation.   So women suffer more from this type of joking.  Moreover, Scott Brown has encouraged a sexually-available reputation by posing nude in Cosmo.  Martha Coakley has never done anything to imply that she is fair game in that arena.  Joking about the sexual desirability or availability of candidates trivializes serious issues and has no place in journalism.