The Media No Longer Holding Back Female Candidates

The mid-term elections was a huge success for many women politicians. Iowa for the first time in history will have a woman in Congress and Mia Love is now the first African American Republican woman to win a congressional seat. Next year will the first time, women will occupy more than 100 seats in Congress.

This has become a huge step forward for women pursuing careers in politics as women are starting to succeed in political elections. For years media has been the blame for women politicians not being able to win elections, as the media has a bad habit of bashing women candidates. According to an article in the Washington Post from, many believe the media isn't holding back female candidates at all. The article states, "virtually there's no differences in the content of coverage for men and women. In those races, women were just as likely to receive coverage as men. We found that male and female candidates were associated with the same issues and traits. And not only were mentions of the candidates’ gender – references to physical appearance, clothes, family roles and so forth – quite rare, they occurred with the same frequency for men and women." 

After writing this blog for the past three months I don't personally agree that the media coverage on men and women are the same, but I do believe that over time that media will finally start to treat everyone equally. This is just the beginning as more women will hopefully start running for office.

Hillary Clinton Too Old For Presidency

Your Too Old To Become President

Fox News has truly gone too great heights in criticizing Hillary Clinton's age in the run up and coming 2016 Presidential Elections. Many of the Fox News hosts have questioned whether being a grandmother would hurt Clinton politically. Some has even suggested that Clinton gets plastic surgery before running for president. Also in a November 9th interview with Politico, Sen. Rand Paul suggested that Clinton, may be too old to successfully campaign for president. Paul stated, "it's a very taxing undertaking to go through. It's a rigorous physical ordeal, I think, to be able to campaign for the presidency."

Neil Cavuto Response

On the November 11th edition of Fox News Your World, host Neil Cavuto defended Hillary Clinton, by calling Paul's comments "so base and so cheap." He also went on and talked about Clinton's achievements as Secretary of State by stating, "I think it's fair to say Hillary Clinton was up to the physical rigors of the job and then some."

My Opinion 

I personally found Sen. Paul's and a few other Fox News host comments very rude and offensive to women. Stating that Clinton should consider plastic surgery is ridiculous and shows that women are often judged more on their looks and less on their intelligence and ability to lead a country. John McCain and Ronald Regan were both older when they ran for president than Clinton will be if she decides to run in the 2016 race. Former President Regan was 69 when elected into office and McCain was 71 when running for President in 2008. Both Regan and McCain were clearly grandfathers when running for office but when a women is a grandmother running for president it's now a problem. Mitt Ronmey was also a grandfather when he ran for president, but the media never focused negatively on him being a grandfather in the presidential race. Once again women are negatively judged based on appearance than smarts.

Cosmopolitan Maganize Encourages It's Readers to Vote

 

#CosmoVotes

In August 2014, Cosmopolitan magazine decided to expand it's coverage to include politics, by launching the #CosmoVotes campaign which focuses on candidate endorsements, coverage of women-centric issues, and a social media effort to encourage readers to vote. The purpose for this campaign was to enlighten their readers to think about important issues, as they show support for women and politics. Many celebrities took part of this campaign as it was a huge success on social media.

Gretchen Carlson's Opinion

On the November 3 edition of The Real Story, host Gretchen Carlson criticized Cosmopolitan magazine take on politics, as she suggested that the magazine is "taking it a step too far." Carlson seemed to be upset that the magazine wasn't supporting Republican candidates, as she stated "they basically say some kind of snarky words about any Republican candidate, calling them 'troubling,' 'an extremist who rails against the poor,' 'an anti-choice radical." Carlson questions the magazine's decision to endorse certain candidates, saying, "A lot of people are probably wondering why fashion magazines are getting into politics and actually endorsing candidates but that is the world that we live in now."

My Opinion

A Fox News host criticizing something supporting women and voting honestly doesn't surprise me, as Carlson's comments come weeks after other Fox News host rudely suggested that young women shouldn't even vote. I think it's great that women magazines are starting to endorse politics. Just because you are a women's fashion magazines doesn't mean you can't encourage your readers to vote. I do understand Carlson didn't like that Cosmopolitan magazine didn't really endorse Republican candidates, but that's their choice. I have seen many TV shows that repeatedly criticize Republicans and Democrats, but if you don't like it then just don't watch the show or in this case just don't read the magazine. I think it's awesome that more companies are more getting involved in politics.

The Battle of the Georgia Senate Race

Michelle Nunn is a democratic challenger running for the Georgia Senate seat in the upcoming November 4th election. Her key component is republican challenger David Perdue. Perdue is consistently using the media and running TV ads stating Nunn is for Obama and has funded organizations linked to terrorists groups. 

This is a great example of how hard a women has to battle to be equally placed in positions such as men. Some people in Nunn's campaign was afraid that this was a "distortion" Republicans would attack her with.

We all know that politics can get real messy around the upcoming election months, but constantly falsely accusing a person of something they didn't do is ridiculous. Instead of bashing other candidates politicians really should start focusing on how they plan to improve the economy with their own policies. Hearing candidates constantly bash each other makes me not even want to vote for them. I know it's part of the political territory but sometimes it's just way too much negativity towards one another.

Media Discourages Young Women To Vote

Young Women Are Too Dumb To Vote?

On October's 21st edition of Fox News The Five, the co-hosts decided to discuss the potential impact on women voters for the mid-term elections. Kimberly Guifoyle suggested that young women shouldn't exercise their civic duties and should be excused from jury duty, because they lack life experience and just "don't get it." Greg Gutfeld suggested that young women lack the wisdom to vote as conservatives. This all comes after Lena Dunham wrote an article called the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which she encouraged young women to go vote.

"Five Reasons Why You're Too Dumb To Vote"

The Planned Parenthood Action Fund, has received numerous backlash as NRO'S Kevin D. Willamson decided to provide "Five Reasons Why You're Too Dumb To Vote". In this article he criticizes young women stating: "I would like to suggest, as gently as I can, that if you are voting as an act of self-gratification, if you do not understand the role that voting in fact plays in a constitutional republic, and if you need Lena Dunham to tell you why and how you should be voting -- you should not vote. If you get your politics from actors and your news from television comedians -- you should not vote. There's no shame in it, your vote is statistically unlikely to affect the outcome of an election, and there are many much more meaningful ways to serve your country and your fellow man: Volunteer at a homeless shelter; join the Marine Corps; become a nun; start a business."

Do You Agree? 

I think it's completely offensive that people believe that just because you are a young women that you are too naive and stupid to vote. Telling young women that "your vote is statistically unlikely to affect the outcome of an election, and there are many much more meaningful ways to serve your country and your fellow man," is ridiculous when their are plenty of well educated young females that understand politics extremely well. There are plenty of older women and men in this country that doesn't know anything about politics and they still go vote. Everyone's vote counts and is important to this nation, just because you're a young women doesn't mean your stupid, go voice your opinion and go vote.

Females Appearance in Politics

It's very common for a women to want to look nice at all times, but can women politicians take it too far when they ask for political parties to pay for their pricey wardrobes? Well for the past week Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, has been criticized after repeatedly asking the DNC to pay for her wardrobe expenses. Many female politicians has expressed that it is important to look their best at all times since the media can be so cruel.  According at a  CNN State of the Union Blog post,  media firms have certain expectations when it comes to politicians’ styles including: to never wear ponytails and to wear red clothing instead of black clothing. 

The media has been obsessed with women politician clothing probably since Jackie Kennedy, as she had a very glamour style. Many times the media will find a way to criticize women clothing regardless. For example Michelle Obama, was criticized for wearing an expensive jacket to meet Queen Elizabeth II. Janet Yellen was also criticized last year when media outlets noticed that she wore the exact same black jacket and shirt to her Senate confirmation hearing, that she had worn the previous month when President Barack Obama announced her nomination. Back in 2008 Sarah Palin received numerous backlash from the media when the RNC paid for her wardrobe expenses. In fact, even Debbie Schultz also hard some harsh words for Palin's expenses, which she didn't with at the time.

My Opioion

Even though I am no fan of Sarah Palin, I do believe the media does put a lot of pressure on women politicians to look trendy and professional. I do not believe men are criticized for their clothing in politics because all they wear is a suit and tie. It's offensively important to look good, but I believe the media does focus too much on appearance than education and polices.

Go Vote, Go Run, Go Lead

Photo via Melissa Brewer on Flickr

So I found this really interesting article called VoteRunLead to recruit, train women to run for local office. The article focuses on why more women don't run for office and how we can motivate each other to actually run for office. This is somewhat similar to my first blog post, about pushing ourselves and conquering our dreams. 

What is VoteRunLead?

VoteRunLead is a new non-profit organization which launched in early September 2014. This organization will recruit and train women on how to effectively run for office at state and local levels. VRL was founded by Erin Vilardi, which a veteran of the now-defunct White House Project. Vilardi has high hopes that VRL will train and increase the number of women in civic and political leadership.

How does it work?

So VoteRunLead has launched a campaign called Invitation Nation, which allows women to invite and ask other women in their network to run for office. VRL hopes this campaign will help get women more motivated about running for office. Once you are invited and recruited then you will receive online and in-person trainings how a campaign operates and how to make it to the top. The plan is to reach every women in every community and in every race across America. VRL also hopes to have 50,000 women invited by November 2014 and 500,000 invited by 2016. 

I think this organization will truly succeed as it teaches women to go vote, go run, and go lead. If your interested  in more information about VoteRunLead and you want to get involved then visit www.voterunlead.org.