Hillary Clinton Gender Roles

Although Hillary Clinton lost the bid for presidency it shed some insight into how a woman could win the presidency given the androcentric orientation of the office and the masculine dominant media. Hillary introduced the idea of a women running for president, and got people to be more accepting of the idea of a women being president. The exposure could normalize the idea of a woman being president. Hillary has exposed the double standards and “double binds” face on the political stage. These “double binds” creates an environment where women have a limited range of options in how they present themselves to the public. Continued exposure of women on the world stage will continue to change the way woman are viewed. With the exposure of a woman as a presidential candidate, hopefully some of the double binds they face
Hillary’s gender strategy was to focus on her equal qualifications with Obama rather than using her gender to separate them. When Hillary did point out her gender there was a huge backlash. A day after Hillary’s weak performance at a debate at Drexel University the Clinton team released a YouTube video titled “The Politics of Pile On.” Which was an ad that seemed to imply that her male counterparts had ganged up on her. The next day Hilary said in regards to her alma mater, “ In so many ways this all-women’s college prepared me to compete in the all-boys club of presidential politics.” Hillary get yelled at for being sexist, this brought the gender card into the spotlight. Now that the media and the public have been exposed to a woman they will not force them in to the equality/ difference double bind. Instead of seeing a woman as different they will just be seen as another candidate running to be