Women's and Gender Studies Program

Race and gender in campaign discussed

By: Deborah Frisch

Article originally published in The Justice, 2/12/08

A group of Brandeis' political experts shared their insights on the Democratic race for the presidential nomination at a roundtable discussion in Pearlman Lounge last Thursday, all agreeing that race and gender play a big role in the process.

"It is impossible to remove race and gender from this race and discussion and it would be a disservice to what these candidates bring," Prof. Jill Greenlee (POL) said.

With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a deadlock for the Democratic nomination, gender and race have caused this election to become "a provocative time for a lot of people around issues of voting," said James Mandrell (ROCL), chairman of the women's and gender studies program.

The event, co-sponsored by the departments of African and Afro-American Studies, American Studies, Politics, and Women and Gender Studies, featured Greenlee, Prof. Daniel Kryder (POL) and Prof. Mingus Mapps (AAAS/POL). All stressed the idea that identity has become caught up in politics.

In his presentation, Mapps asked whether Democrats have entered into an era of gender and color-blind politics, but came to a tentative conclusion that the Democratic Party is not in such a phase.

"We, over time, have seen a general liberalization; Americans have expressed a willingness to vote for a black or woman candidate," Mapps said. Still, he said that what a voter tells to a survey researcher may be different from how that person votes.

Mapps showed graphs with election data revealing that over time, trends indicate women having more influence on elections by turning out to vote more often than men. "Having a viable woman on the democratic ticket may be attracting more women to the polls," he said.

"There is a distinctive gender breakdown in [the] Obama-Clinton vote," Mapps said. The Democratic Party is predominantly white, with the next largest group African Americans and then Hispanics, he said.

With the data he presented, Mapps showed that Obama consistently beats Clinton with the African American vote, a surprising outcome, Mapps said, considering the Clinton family's popular reputation among black voters in the past. Clinton has won the women's vote so far, while Obama has won the black vote, revealing an interesting intersection of race and gender in the election, Mapps said.

Greenlee said part of Clinton's appeal to women can be attributed to her image as a working woman and a mother.

While Clinton is not representative of all women, Greenlee said, much of her appeal to female voters' results from her status as the first female candidate that is married to a key political player. "She represents [the] continuation of white male patriarchy," Greenlee said.

Within gender schemes, "women are seen as possessing expressive traits; women are compassionate, understanding, more trustworthy and moral," Greenlee said, while men are seen as more stable, aggressive and confident.

Kryder followed Greenlee and said, "Americans are keen to take credit for the apparent progressivism taking place, but both of these candidates are hybrids in very important ways in terms of race and gender."

Neither of these candidates has made their race or gender specific constituencies central to their campaigns, Kryder said. It seems that both are "generally running away from their identities. Obama is all about muting difference, and Hillary is running as a political hardball player," Kryder said.

After researching the issues on both candidates' Web sites, Kryder concluded that gender issues have been captured by the term "family," and race has been captured by the term "crime." It seems as if political practices have moved on and race and gender no longer matter, but this "de-racialized and de-genderized role makes identities more important" Kryder concluded.

Questions from the audience ranged from issues around Obama's response to a question about Hispanics taking jobs from blacks to whether a residual fear of a black man in power could be dangerous for Obama if he were to win the presidency.

In response to questions about identity, race, and gender, Greenlee said that "[Hillary and Barack] are individuals as well, and we don't know if Latinos are voting for Hillary because they don't like Obama and are suspicious of a black president or if they just like Hillary. We don't know if it's about race and gender or Barack and Hillary."

Greenlee concluded that gender and race matter a great deal in this election. "Women tend to vote for female candidates," she said. Mapps concurred with the idea of symbolic representation and said "blacks tend to vote for blacks and Hispanics for Hispanics."

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Primary Questions:
A Roundtable Discussion of Gender and Race
in the US Primary Elections

Thursday
February 7, 2008
5:30-7:00 pm
(a light dinner of pizza will be served)
Pearlman Lounge, Pearlman

Jill Greenlee, Professor of Politics
Daniel Kryder, Professor of Politics
Mingus Mapps, Professor of African and Afro-American Studies and Politics
Eileen McNamara, Professor of the Practice of Journalism