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| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Tags: 2008 elections, business, feminism, Forbes magazine, Hillary Clinton
Now, the media doesn't even have to pretend to be impartial. It can be pretty openly sexist - or at least, that's what popped into my head when I first stumbled upon Forbes mag's "08 Tracker" which, paired with E-Poll Market Research, claims to know which candidates are the "most aggressive" or "most trustworthy" or "most handsome." (Can women even be considered for that last category? Ladies, I think I'd kick someone who called me handsome, no?)
Anyway, what I love love love is that Clinton got "most aggressive." Forbes, the magazine of the business world, of course must reserve the word aggressive for a woman who is trying to make some barriers in a man's world. As a former business school student, it's frustrating to continually see women have to take a backseat (unless, of course, they need to hire a couple of women to save face and put someone on their website on the diversity page) or risk being called "too aggressive." I remember two of my peers, one male and one female, having the exact same characteristics. Raising their hands in class every 2 minutes, taking the lead on all their projects, and generally being "that kid." Any guesses on who got away with it, and labeled an all-star, and which one got the tag of annoying and whiny?
Just sayin. It's not easy being a woman in a man's world (especially when that world is business or politics... thank Forbes for reminding me of that).
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Now, there's plenty to criticize about this list. For starters, just this week, John McCain, cussed out and just plain berated one of his colleagues over his stance on immigration reform. And except for Zell Miller, he had the most aggressive speech of the 2004 RNC convention. But because the right-wing media doesn't harp on that meme as much as they do about Hillary, they'd rather publish the results of a generic poll of people in shopping malls than cover actual current events.
For another, and more pertinent to a methodological point, the survey claims that half of the respondents were shown the names of the candidates, and half were shown pictures of the candidate. Well, is the picture of Hillary on the website the one they showed respondents? Because that's a pretty aggressive-lookin' photo on that slideshow.
So, if anything, this poll only shows that people don't know what an incredible jackass McCain is capable of being and have a pre-existing negative perception of Hillary Clinton. If Forbes were really interested in news and analysis, they'd also have compared perceptions of aggressiveness based on actual issue positions, by having respondents read comparable statements on issues like Iraq, Iran, international relations, and military policy. If they actually did a blind study using just the candidates' own words, imagine what the results would be.
But I don't think this is necessarily grounds for a blanket assertion that Forbes is being sexist in calling Hillary "aggressive." If anything, they're just reporting the fact that a lot of other people call her that in opinion surveys, which I think more exposes than reinforces the anti-feminist bias you've noted in personal experiences.