The Sexism to Worry About in the Harris campaign

Kamala Harris is the best choice for a difficult situation. Wealthy donors with little understanding of politics beyond West Wing reruns drove us to a point where Biden committed political seppeku to save the campaign against Trump. She is making the transition gracefully while embracing the enthusiasm of Democrats freed from self-imposed existential dread. No Democratic candidate is better positioned to ride this wave and win the presidential election this fall.

There is much said now about the racism and sexism she will face during the campaign. MAGA will pull out all the stops and desperately scramble to find that Willie Horton 2.0 to, as they would say, put a nasty woman in her place. There is one problem Democrats must realize that will not come from MAGA directly, but will still burden the Harris campaign. Democrats longed for someone who can take it to Trump, really hit the convicted felon and his hillbilly wannabe Mini-Me running mate with the truth about who they are. Kamala the prosecutor is ideal for this, The problem is, Americans have a problem with assertive women.

Democrats should recognize the one thing so many in the base want Harris to do is the most difficult thing for a woman candidate to do in America.

This is no new idea to any Democratic woman who has run for office, from 2016 Clinton on down. There is a pressure to be “lady-like” for lack of a better term and women continually campaign through a lady-to-bitch continuum, which varies only by their constituencies. Democrats should recognize the one thing so many in the base want Harris to do is the most difficult thing for a woman candidate to do in America. Assertiveness has a potential to unsettle many less partisan voters who otherwise may be inclined to vote against Trump.

This is a most insidious bias because most people who find assertive women unsettling are unaware exactly why they feel so. When what people see does not fit with their expectations, in this case gender stereotypes, anxiety follows. Anxiety needs explanation and this need becomes a blank slate where MAGA will place all sorts of nonsense into peoples’ minds about Harris. We need to fill this space first, to inoculate people before MAGA can take hold.

If we took a man with the exact resume and life story of Harris, that candidate could tear Trump a new asshole every day and no voter would blink. Many voters will blink with Harris. Not that Harris should refrain from attack, because no one is more deserving of such treatment as Trump and Mini-Me. Democrats just need to be cognizant of the problem. We cannot label everyone who questions her assertiveness as sexist immediately, but instead see such concerns as teachable moments. If anyone expresses any unease about how hard she attacks Trump, ask “would you have any problem if a guy said this?” Now, most folks will say that doesn’t matter, but it an inoculating response. Get voters to think about a bias without calling them sexist is key to diffusing the problem and garnering support.

I am in no way advocating Harris bake cookies and hope for the best. She will, however, need to find the most effective bandwidth to carry the attack. Democrats will need to understand this mission’s true degree of difficulty for a woman candidate in America. How can we talk to those put off by a woman’s assertiveness without driving them away? This is a campaign for democracy, not an exercise to prove who is correct or not. Not everyone manifesting such a bias is against a woman president, but they need some help walking through their bias to the other side.