2016 was supposed to be the year of women in US politics. Ninety-six years after women got the right to vote, there was finally a female candidate from a major political party on the presidential ticket. Hillary Clinton was a formidable candidate who had years of experience and the support of the Democratic Establishment and President Obama behind her. Clinton was considered an extremely qualified candidate for the job. In fact, in the first Republican primary debate, Senator Marco Rubio said, âif this election is going to be a resume competition, then Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president, because sheâs been in office and in government longer than anybody else running here tonightâ (Carroll, 2015). Similarly, former speaker of the house, and a senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi said, âShe would be the most qualified person to enter the White House in modern historyâŠwith all due respect to President Clinton when he went in, President Obama and President Bush and everybody elseâ (Payne, 2015). Yet, on November 9, 2016, to the shock and surprise of the entire world, Hillary Clinton lost to the Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.
There are multiple factors that contribute to the success or failure of a political campaign, especially for a presidential election. Based on various 2016 US presidential post-election analysis , such factors include personality of the candidate, the favorability or unfavorability ratings of various candidates, debate performances, handling of issues at the international, national, state, and local levels, monies raised by political action committees (PACs) and super PACs, social media, scandals within the political party or among the candidates, national sentiment, and even the zeitgeist such as the strong anti-establishment emotion in the 2016 election. A campaign win is never a certainty. It would be impossible to isolate a single reason why Hillary Clinton lost the election; however, the fact that gender played a role in the 2016 presidential election is irrefutable. Whether it was Hillaryâs gender, her lack of femininity, or Trumpâs need to emphasize his masculinity and virility, or the gender hierarchies and power issues playing out at a societal level, gender was front and center in this election.
While it is critical to analyze Hillary Clintonâs loss, the impetus to study gender in political marketing runs much deeper. Certain trends make it evident that gender is an important issue in political marketing in the United States. For example, even 96 years after women got the right to vote and with 10 million more registered female voters than male, the United States is yet to elect a female president, or even vice president. The United States has had only 39 female governors (22 Democrats and 17 Republicans) to date. Of the 39 female governors, only 25 were first elected in their own right (CAWP, 2018). Three female governors replaced their husbands, and 11 became governors by constitutional succession (CAWP, 2018). Of the 11, 4 subsequently won full terms (CAWP, 2018). In addition, 24 of the 50 states in the country, including California and New York, are yet to elect a female governor. Currently women make up only 10 percent of all governors, that is 5 of the 50 governors presently serving office are women.
The numbers are just marginally better in Congress. Women comprise 19.6 percent of the Congress, leading to the country being ranked 101 in the world for female representation in government by the Inter-Parliamentary Union as of October 2017. As of January 1, 2018, there were 21 female senators in the US Senate, that is, 21 percent of the senate (CAWP, 2018). Of these 21 women, 16 were Democrats and 5 were Republicans, an approximate 3:1 ratio. Similarly, as of January 1, 2018, there were 84 women serving as representatives from 34 states in the US House of Representatives, that is, 19.3 percent of the House. Of these 84 women, 62 women representatives were Democrats and 22 were Republican. This number is similar to that of the senate in that it reflects an approximate 3:1 ratio of Democratic women elected to the House of Representatives as compared to Republican women.
These numbers are even worse when considering women of color and other minority candidates. As of January 1, 2018, only 38 of the elected officials in Congress were women of color (CAWP, 2018). This number is comprised of 4 women of color in the Senate and 34 women of color in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, there is one Hispanic woman, two Asian-American/Pacific Islander women, and one multiracial woman (CAWP, 2018). All four are from the Democratic Party. In the House of Representatives , there are 34 women of color, 18 black women, 9 Hispanic women, and 7 Asian-American/Pacific Islander women. Women of color make up only 7.1 percent of the 535 member Congress, of which 35 women are Democrats and only 3 are Republicans. On a similar note, as of January 1, 2018, there were only two openly Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender (LGBT) women in Congress, Tammy Baldwin in the Senate who identifies as a lesbian and Kyrsten Sinema in the House who identifies as bisexual. They are both from the Democratic Party. This is not a surprise since the Republican Party has come out against LGBT issues such as equal right to marry, bathroom access for Transgender individuals, and LGBT employee non-discrimination.
Women of color are not only few in number but have also had a harder time getting elected to office. From the time the first US Congress met in 1789, it took 203 years to elect a black female Senator in 1992. The first openly lesbian female Senator was elected in 2012, along with the first Asian-American female Senator, and the first Latina Senator in 2016 (see Table 1.4).
Such statistics raise concerns about the âdemocratic legitimacyâ of the Unites States and the fair political representation of all citizens (Lawless & Fox, 2012, p. 2). To achieve gender parity in politics, the underlying causes of such inequalities must be examined and understood. Yet, there is a paucity of research on the topic in the field of political marketing. This book attempts to provide insight into gender and political marketing in the United States and addresses a fundamental gap in the literature.
Purpose and Objectives
The purpose of this book is to understand the issues of gender in political marketing. From a theoretical perspective, this book facilitates a...