Cutting Women Out: The Media Bias Against Female Candidates

Victoria Woodhull wore “dainty high-heeled boots,” observed the New York Times in an 1872 editorial on the Equal Rights Party candidate for president. In that editorial, titled “A Lamp Without Oil,” the Times had this to say about the successful stockbroker and women’s rights activist:

Mrs. Victoria C. Woodhull has been married rather more extensively than most American matrons, and hence it might be deemed inappropriate to style her a foolish virgin; yet the characteristics which have made the foolish virgins of the parable famous for nearly 19 centuries were mental rather than physical, and in her inconsequential method of reasoning. Mrs. Woodhull closely resembles them.

More than 130 years later, the Washington Post, in an article about presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), reported, “There was cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2. It belonged to Sen. Hillary Clinton.” Although Clinton was talking about education policy, reporter Robin Givhan noted, “She was wearing a rose-colored blazer over a black top. The neckline sat low on her chest and had a subtle V-shape. The cleavage registered after only a quick glance. No scrunch-faced scrutiny was necessary. There wasn’t an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable.”

Despite striking advances over the last century in women’s social and political rights, and in attitudes about women in politics, press coverage of women candidates is not much better today than it was in 1872. The most significant consequence of this is not that, should a woman run, the press would make it less likely for her to win. Rather, the real problem is that such press coverage may make women less likely to run.

Though the mainstream media tend to frame women who run for president as novelties, they are not. Women have led nations such as Canada, France and the United Kingdom, not to mention Turkey, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and many others. In fact, there have been so many historical and contemporary women heads of state that one has to scroll through pages to get a complete list.

Here at home, women have been running for the presidency since before universal suffrage, as Woodhull’s candidacy demonstrates.

In his comprehensive list of people who have run for president, James Havel, author of U.S. Presidential Candidates and the Elections: A Biographical and Historical Guide, included more than 100 women’s names. Some of these women were serious candidates, qualified for federal primary matching funds, and even received substantial press coverage. Here are a few:

Woodhull ran as the Equal Rights Party candidate in 1872. She owned her own newspaper, was the first woman stockbroker on Wall Street, and presided over and supported her extended family.

The second woman to run for president was Belva Lockwood in 1884. As an attorney and partner in her own firm, and as the first woman to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court, she had a profession consistent with those of other presidential candidates. Lockwood had also campaigned for presidential candidate Horace Greeley, and drafted a piece of legislation making it illegal to take into account a person’s sex in determining pay for civil servants. Congress later passed the bill.

Former Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) sought the presidential nomination of the Republican Party and was the first woman already holding federal office to run. She ran in 1964 after serving nine years in the House and 15 years in the Senate. Smith placed third in popular votes in the Republican primary, but she received only 27 delegate votes at the convention that ultimately nominated Barry Goldwater.

In 1988, former Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), a Harvard-educated attorney who had served in Congress for eight terms, ran for president. At the time, she was a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee.