Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign, 2016
One key example of the challenges faced by female candidates running for office is Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. In the 2016 election, Clinton was the closest any female candidate came to being elected president of the United States. Clinton won the popular vote but lost the electoral college to Donald Trump, a man with no political experience who acted in ways that no male candidates had ever acted before.
The media portrayal of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election contributed to voter attitudes about Clinton’s charisma and ability to perform as a female leader. Said portrayal also highlighted the double standard women are held to when running for office. One study found that left and right new outlets differed significantly in their portrayal of Clinton’s prototypicality and competence as a leader [1]. According to one source, Trump received three times more coverage on policy matters compared to Clinton. During the summer of 2016 alone, only four percent of Clinton-related stories featured policy matters. A substantial amount of coverage of Clinton was negative with overemphasis on Emailgate and criticisms of Clinton not smiling enough and the importance of her appearing softer or more feminine [2].
The portrayals of Clinton were also strongly influenced by the Trump Campaign as well. One of Trump’s campaign strategies was to criticize Clinton’s gender. Trump claimed that if she were not a woman, she would not be as popular of a candidate as she at the time was. He also questioned her strength and stamina [3]. Both of these are examples of the increased emphasis on how a candidate’s personal life can impact their electability. In this instance, her gender was weaponized to portray her as the weaker candidate. A campaign ad was aired in 2016 claiming that Clinton doesn’t have “the fortitude, strength, or stamina to lead the country”. The ad is accompanied by footage from when she was sick with pneumonia on the campaign trail and other scenes of stumbling and coughing. The ad demonstrates a larger campaign theme of claiming that Clinton is “too weak” to be president [4].
Throughout her campaign, Clinton was forced to balance responding to these types of attacks without alienating male voters. Utimately, Clinton had far more experience than Trump and was still defeated. “Her case demonstrates that women can surmount some of the obstacles outlined previously while also affirming continued hurdles. The presidential glass ceiling remains fully intact in the United States now and perhaps the foreseeable future” [5].
1. Lau, Bligh. “Leadership as a Reflection of Who We Are: Social Identity, Media Portrayal, and Evaluations of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” Sex roles 82, no. 7-8 (July 10, 2019): 422–437.
2. Jalalzai, Farida. “A Comparative Assessment of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential Race.” Socius, (January 2018). https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023117732441.
3. Chozick, Amy and Ashley, Parker. "Donald Trump's Gender-Based Attacks on Hillary Clinton Have Calculated Risk." The New York Times. April 29, 2016. Accessed November 03, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/29/us/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-women.html
4. Beckwith, Ryan Teague. "Donald Trump Ad: He Attacks Hillary Clinton's Health." Time. October 11, 2016. Accessed November 03, 2020. https://time.com/4526724/donald-trumps-new-ad-attacks-hillary-clintons-health/.
5. Jalalzai, Farida. “A Comparative Assessment of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential Race.” Socius, (January 2018).
Figure 1. Clinton, Hillary. Hillary Clinton Quote. Digital image. Twitter. October 23, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2020.
Figure 2. Skidmore, Gage. Hillary Clinton. November 02, 2016.