Why do female political candidates display masculine traits, and does it benefit them?

Female political candidates, even past the watershed Year of the Woman and into the

modern day, as female participation in elections is increasingly normalised, often

display masculine traits, such as aggression, hard-headed stubborness, decisiveness,

and toughness. Why they do so is a question that can be answered by considering how

femininity and masculinity are constructed in the Western world, and why masculinity is

considered preferable in terms of politics. This can then pivot onto a second question -

does it actually benefit female political candidates to show masculine traits?

Part of the reason why it benefits female political candidates to perform in a more

masculine fashion is due to how femininity and masculinity are constructed. Femininity

is considered gentle, soft, and emotional, and masculinity is considered to be tough,

resilient, and logical, therefore more suitable for the challenging political sphere and the

fighting and arguing often necessary to get bills passed, money appropriated for

projects, and treaties ratified. Indeed, formal exclusion of women from the political

sphere was the case for many years, as women’s suffrage was only granted

nation-wide in 1920, in the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Women were not

considered to be capable of the difficult decision-making required to cast a

well-considered ballot. A woman displaying masculine traits can, therefore, be seen

more easily as a genuine competitor in the election cycle, as well as be taken more

seriously while in office. Women support defence and national security bills more
frequently than men, for instance, as war has traditionally been a masculine endeavour,

as well as the defence of family and home. By supporting the military, therefore, they

can seize that masculine imagery for themselves.

In terms of specifically the Presidency of the United States, masculinity is entwined with

the position. The President occupies a particularly masculine role within the country, of

the protector and guardian of the United States’ citizens. Protection and guardianship is

associated with masculinity, and particularly father figures - which the President is

expected to be. This stems from the very beginning, when George Washington, often

considered the ‘Father of the Country’ in the United States, became the United States’

first president. He was a top general who had fought to free the colonies in the

Revolutionary War, and was - for the time - a masculine dresser who was 6 feet and 2

inches, tall even by modern standards, and in general was a manly figure. While at the

time his public persona at the time was more of a dignified statesman, since then his

masculinity has been played up and greater emphasis put on his virtuous, but

masculine, modern persona. This necessity of masculinity became even more apparent

after the terrorist attack of 9/11, when a rather peaceful period beforehand was

shattered and the country since has been placed in a state of perpetual war. Conflict

had never come to American shores before with such an attack - in World Wars One

and Two, the contiguous United States was only attacked once, and the Japanese

fire-bomb started only a miniscule blaze that only damaged some woodland, and the

Cold War proxy wars were all far from home. The only real comparable terrorist attack
was the Oklahoma city bombings, but they were home-grown terrorism, and didn’t

obliterate a well-known part of the New York skyline. Since then, the War on Terrorism

has made American politics paranoid of foreign threats, and recontextualised the United

States as a country in need of defence to an extent not seen since the early 1900s,

when fear of anarchists and devious foreign criminals was at its height. As before,

defence of home and family is something expected of masculinity, so modern

presidents must be masculine to the point of over-the-top machoism to be elected.

Therefore, while both genders face the danger of being deemed not masculine enough

to be President, female Presidential candidates in particular must exemplify masculinity,

especially as the only women who have come near to the Presidential position are the

First Ladies, the wives of the President, who aren’t expected to be particularly involved

and serve more as largely disregarded female figureheads who support their husbands.

Despite this focus on masculinity, however, displaying masculine traits as a woman has

its own problems. Masculinity is, obviously, associated with men, and people who try

and cross gender lines, even in just the traits they exhibit, are traditionally viewed with

suspicion and dislike. Men who overly display emotion or are gentle and soft-spoken are

‘sissies’, while women who speak up or aggressively stand their ground are deemed,

‘shrill,’ or, ‘harpies.’ Women also have the barrier of the fact that they are deemed

feminine as a starting point, so must both overcome that through displays of

masculinity, but also be more than neutral in terms of gender - to be masculine.

Carrying on from that point, masculine displays by women therefore carry the risk of

appearing overly forced and artificial, which is a very dangerous appearance in

elections. It can also mean that female politicians face an awkward point where to

achieve election they need to be masculine, but a great deal of their support comes

from progressives who are unlikely to support even more militarisation of the political

stage or approve of traditionally masculine showmanship.

In conclusion, female political candidates face a stage in which masculinity is necessary

for success, but where masculine women are not accepted. They are forced, then, to

walk a tightrope of gender role fluidity, where being too masculine labels them as a

woman who ‘wishes she was a man’, but being too feminine makes her look too soft in

the eyes of the voting public. This is particularly true for more important political offices,

in particular the Presidential seat.