Descriptive Representation #2
It was interesting to see what the CAWP study had to say about why there are so few women candidates. It is not there are a lack of interested and qualified women, it is that women do not consider themselves to be qualified with the same credentials as men who were very confident in their ability to run. If this is not evidence of patriarchy, than I don’t know what is. Because of the socially constructed ideas of gender, women face subtle and explicit messages that leadership is inherently male. As a result, women are nearly written out of politics. On the other hand, those women that do run like Chappelle-Nadal, usually have a background in law, business, political activism or education. I wish CAWP gave a comparative view on what men do in their road to candidacy because I am curious to see if women are holding themselves to a comparable, if not higher professional standard than their male counterparts before considering themselves ready to run.
It also struck me that voters perceive women as more qualified to handle education issues and I wonder if it’s because women take on education issues more often than men or because they advocate for the issue very well. In any case, this bodes well for Chappelle-Nadal because that is a topic of utmost importance to her campaign. I would like to see statistics regarding women advocating for VA policies because that is another issue important to my candidate. However, I have a hunch that she is a little atypical amongst other women candidates on this issue because women are often distanced from anything having to do with war and it is only in recent years that the military is allowing women to serve in combat. Given that war is gendered as masculine it would follow that more men would be veterans and therefore represent veterans. Chapelle-Nadal is from a military family so she still has credibility and a strong connection to the issue, but I do wonder how voters across the country would respond to a woman running on these issues.
Although media coverage for women candidates can easily get away with sexism, women can have a little bit more autonomy in representing themselves through social media. However, this grants more opportunities for error and misrepresentation. In Chappelle-Nadal’s case, we see this through her twitter account which has been in the news lately for the few choice words she had for Governor Jay Nixon. In more liberal news sources, she might be applauded for her indignance at the injustices Nixon has allowed to go on in Ferguson. On the other hand, more conservative news sources may capitalize on her tweets as unprofessional, angry, and hysterical. Furthermore, tweets and facebook statuses can be taken out of context and even photoshopped to create temporary buzz that may harm a candidate.
Intersectionality will be a recurring theme throughout this course because many of us have chosen women of color, and I believe there are a few people who have selected women who are openly lesbian or bisexual. Identity politics in electoral campaigns can be used to appeal to a broader voter demographic or, by the opponent to alienate them from dominant culture. Even though District 14 has had women of color representatives at least two terms in a row, this is in no way indicative of how women of color candidates are doing across the country. CAWP states that only 3.5% of all statewide elected representatives are women of color. Furthermore, women of color are held to different appearance standards and are even sexualized differently than their white female counterparts. Maria Chappelle-Nadal is painfully aware of this in the video I posted as she comments on how she was confused with another Black woman representative who wears her natural hair. “I guess we all just look alike,” she jabs sarcastically.