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Jessica Francis
UWRT 1103
Professor Campbell
30 March 2015
Sorry Suzie, Society Says You Cant be President
Ten-year-old Suzie Scott can barely hold her excitement as she waits for her turn to stand
up and speak. The class discussion today is about what the students want to do when they grow
up. Suzie prepared her entire speech, picked out an outfit, and even baked cookies for her fellow
classmates for the end of her presentation. As she stood in front of her class and spoke about her
enthusiasm to eventually become the President of the United States, her classmates looked at her
with glazed eyes. After she passed out her Presidential cookies, she opened the floor up for
questions. A boy named James pointed out the lack of female presidents in the United States
history and told Suzie that she couldnt ever be the president because she is a girl. Suzie felt
discouraged by James comment and took her seat in frustration. Why cant I be the President
of United States? Suzie wondered silently. She would work really hard for it, and she is just as
able to do anything that a boy can do. At the young age of 10 years old, Suzies dreams were
quickly discouraged.
Why did James tell Suzie that she could never be the president? Is it just James who
believes that girls cannot become President of the United States? Unfortunately, James is not
alone in thinking that girls and women cannot succeed in high positions of power like president.
A large portion of American citizens do not believe that the United States should have a female
president, frequently because of unknowing gendered stereotypes in society. I am curious to
learn more about these gender stereotypes that women in politics face on a daily basis, and I also

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want to find out if there are women who are able to overcome the stereotypes in their
professional career. If I can learn more about the stereotypes and possibly find examples of
triumphs over them, maybe I can convince hypothetical Suzie that her plight to become a female
president is not as out-of-reach as she has been taught.
The United States functions as a patriarchal system based on gender roles. Since its
inception in the late 1700s when the only people who could vote were wealthy white men who
owned property, the United States has encouraged a certain demographic to get involved in
politics by voting or by serving in office. Even when the country went through its diverse
enlightenment and began giving other demographics the right to vote, black men got their right
to vote before white women, and finally black women by de facto regulations. Today, almost
200 years later, there are still societal norms that inhibit certain demographics from participating
in politics. Women definitely know the feeling of social norms crippling their efforts to do good
things for their community by running for office at any level. There is an interactive map on
Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics webpage that illustrates the amount of women
both in the past and currently in congressional seats, in the state legislature, and amount of
female governors per state. For example, the states of Iowa and Mississippi have never had a
single female congressional delegate in their history (CAWP). Surely there must be a reason for
these results. If ten-year-old Suzie Scott lived in Iowa or Mississippi, how would she feel about
never having had a female congressional representative? Would this inaction to broaden the
perspective of the state to include all genders inspire Suzie to be the first female congressperson
in those states? This is the new mentality of many rising female political stars now. Instead of
waiting to be handed an opportunity to lead, more and more women are learning that the best
way to beat the patriarchal system is to fix the system on the inside.

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According to Jennifer Lawless, an
associate professor of government and the
director of Women and Politics Institute at
American University, there are three
potential explanations for the increased
difficulty women candidates face that male
counterparts were entitled to overlook.
First, women in politics have to function in
a sexist environment. Any woman
candidate running for office at any level of the government hierarchy will be asked who is taking
care of her kids while she is out running her campaign. This question rarely gets asked to men, if
it gets asked at all. The idea behind the question is to guilt the woman into thinking she is a bad
mother for leaving her children with some stranger while she selfishly takes care of her career.
Men do not get asked this question because our patriarchal system allows everyone to assume
that his wife is home with the children while he supports his family by running for office. The
woman is selfish and un-motherly in the media and citizens eyes while men in the same position
are applauded for balancing a family and a career so lucratively. The second barrier Lawless
discusses in her article, Sexism and Gender Bias in Election 2008: A More Complex Path for
Women in Politics is that female candidates must contend with the gender bias. 51 percent of
respondents in a representative national sample believe that Americans are not ready to elect a
woman into high office (Lawless). The inherent bias women feel in the political arena affects
their perception of their ability to raise money for their campaign, to gain supporters, and to
disprove the medias harsh portrayal of their campaign (Lawless). In other words, the gender

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bias gives women a significant disadvantage when running for office. There are obstacles they
have to address which men simply are not burdened with. The third barrier Lawless discusses is
the greater challenge women face than men to blindly support fellow female candidates or risk
being labeled a betrayer. The specific example Lawless provides explains that in 2008 when
Hillary Clinton went against Barack Obama in the democratic primaries and people of power had
to place their endorsements in one candidate or the other. Females in high positions of power felt
the need to apologize to Clinton for choosing to endorse Obama over Clinton, and also felt
obliged to compliment her abilities and her qualifications to run the country. Male endorsements
almost never came with the same safe statements for the other candidate whom they did not
endorse because it is assumed that both candidates are equally as qualified. This is an example
of the kinds of adversity female politicians constantly have to face. If I were to tell my
imaginary friend Suzie Scott about these three barriers she would eventually have to deal with if
she ever wanted to become the President of the United States, I wonder how discouraged she
would feel about the whole process. It is a good thing there are some budding success stories of
women in politics and how they managed to beat all the odds and serve as successful politicians.
Maybe there is hope for Suzie yet.
The name Wendy Davis became a common dinner table topic of conversation for weeks
in American households during the summer of 2013. Wendy Davis stood up to Congress and the
entirety of her oppressors that day on June 25. This was not Davis first filibuster in the Texas
state senate but it was her most popular one. A couple years before her most popular filibuster,
Davis stood in front of her state senate and fought to try to stop a $5.5 billion from being cut
from the areas public schools and to try to stop a dramatic reduction in financial assistance for
students trying to go to a state university (Nicks). Davis believed that access to opportunity

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comes through education which is her primary passion and fight (Nicks). This filibuster action
did not get nearly as much attention and publicity as her second filibuster attempt in 2013 to stop
an anti-abortion bill that has shut down more than a dozen abortion clinics in the state so far
(Bassett). Davis was trying to prevent the bill from passing because if passed (it eventually did),
it would require all first-trimester abortion clinics to become mini-hospitals, it would restrict
access to medication abortions, it would require all doctors to have admitting privileges at a local
hospital, and it would prohibit abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy (Bassett). Wendy
Davis, much like any other pro-choice woman, advocates not for the rampant increase of
abortions but for giving women the choice to decide for themselves when they cannot adequately
raise a baby because of personal and fiscal circumstances. Advocating for such a controversial
right in a state as conservative as Texas came with immense difficulties. The filibuster was
about an act of courage and strength to fight back against an abuse of power by political insiders
who were looking out for themselves and their allies instead of hardworking Texans and it
inspired thousands of people across the state to join the fight for Texas (Bassett). In other
words, Davis filibuster was a mechanism to show the patriarchal system in Texas and the rest of
the United States that hardworking female politicians will no longer sit idly by while corruptive
male politicians continue to reap rewards for selling out their constituencies. Unfortunately for
Wendy Davis and all of the Texan women, the bill was still passed and shortly after it passed, 21
of the 40 clinics in Texas closed (Nicks). While Davis lost the fight to stop the bill from further
restricting womens reproductive rights, she also had to deal with the sensationalist media
covering the filibuster mainly on her cute pink sneakers instead of how she stood for more than
eleven hours talking nonstop. Republicans tried to find any reason imaginable to prove that
Davis had broken legislative rules which would bring the filibuster to an end. They tried to ask

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her questions that got her off topic; they protested Davis using a back brace to allow her to stand
up straight for the filibuster; they even argued she veered off topic by talking about ultrasounds
because the bill did not specifically mention ultrasounds. Through all of this heckling and
media, Wendy Davis stood her ground and kept fighting for what she believed in, until the
filibuster period was over and she could sit down. Wendy Davis powered through so many
obstacles to prove her point and stand up for her beliefs, and the world noticed. Even with the
passing of the bill a couple of weeks after the filibuster, Davis pressed onward with her political
career and ran for governor of Texas in 2014. She did not win her campaign but she did not let
that discourage her from continuing her political achievements.
I also came across something really interesting to me during my research process. I
found a blog titled, she-span.tumblr.com. This blog seeks to make women in Washington
more visible, and envisions a future in which Congress reflects the composition of all its
constituents (Doom). She-Span is a DC-based public art exhibit that commemorates the
women of the 113th Congress. On this blog there are sketched photos of all of the women in
Congress. Not only does this blog exist for anyone to see, but the creator of the blog, Judy
Doom posts the photos all around the DC area to increase the positive visibility of female
congressional leaders in the area. There is a section on the website that takes viewers to a map of
the DC area. Each and every single one of the photos that are posted in Washington DC are pin
pointed on the map. The map even goes as far as to identify which photo is located where.
Posting this kind of pro female politician propaganda on a popular blogging site like Tumblr is a
really good way to get young people interested in American politics. There will come a time
when the 14-year-olds who spend all of their time on their computer will run this country; blogs
like She-Span are opening a conversation for young kids to question why we cant recognize the

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faces of female politicians, why we make such harmful judgments about their appearance instead
of reflecting on their work, and how that can be them a few years down the road with hard work
and determination. Blogs like She-Span offer good news to young girls like Suzie Scott. For
example, Hillary Clinton was heckled at a rally during the 2008 primary elections. Two men
attended one of her rallies and chanted, Iron my shirt! while she spoke (Lawless). What
women wear and the gender roles that women must adhere to are huge discouragements for
future female politicians like Suzie Scott. Perhaps by the time she reaches an age when she
wants to run for office, people will know the kind of work Suzie Scott does and will not buy the
cheesy tabloid that only wants to talk about her pantsuit.
Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin are two strong female politicians who have been the
subject of countless articles written by male authors who inspect their wardrobe and appearance
and spend a fraction of the time actually addressing their political stances. As noted before,
Hillary Clinton was speaking at a rally for the 2008 primary election campaign when two men
interrupted her speech to yell, Iron my shirt! Clinton responded to the outburst after security
escorted the men out of the venue, Ah the remnants of sexism alive and well. Clintons
comment about sexism implies that she has dealt with similar commentary by men many times
before and has constructed a witty and relatable response for when it happens. I would wager
that no male politician has ever been interrupted by a group of women taunting him to go outside
and mow the lawn while he gave a speech. On the other hand, more women than just Hillary
Clinton have been harassed by patriarchal, chauvinistic, oppressive gender roles while trying to
do their jobs. In 2015, Hillary Clinton has to combat the statistic that over 50 percent of
respondents in a national survey believes that Americans are not ready for women in high office
(Lawless). This means that Clinton should either give up hope of running for President of the

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United States in 2016 or she continues to run for office, knowing that so many people might not
be able to open their minds to progressive change. Another famous female politician who has
received a lot of criticism for seemingly everything except her political views is Sarah Palin.
Three supposed reasons women do not like Sarah Palin, according to Time writer Belinda
Luscombe, are that Palin is too pretty, she is too confident, and she could embarrass America
(Luscombe). None of these reasons have anything to do with Palins political objectives.
Instead, this article enforces gender roles that demand women to hate other women for
superficial reasons. Luscombe believes so strongly in the institution of strict gender stereotypes
that she goes on to say, Of course, a candidate cant be too ugly, or it will scare the men, who
are clearly shallow as a gender. This entire article plays on the fundamentals of the patriarchal
system that devalues women in powerful positions by insulting their exterior appearance.
Despite all of this criticism Clinton and Palin have faced, they continue to persevere in their
career fields. Clinton has hinted strongly that she intends to run for president in 2016 regardless
of any hesitation some of the public might feel. Palin is still active in Alaskan government and
combines her political prowess with her girly personality. These two powerful women have
suffered through so much career-based oppression but have broken through all of the muck and
still power through the problems. When little Suzie Scott learns about the women who had a
hard time standing their ground in the face of so much doubt from their own country, she will
feel inspired to follow in the footsteps of women like Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. Hopefully
Suzie Scott will live in a time when women in powerful positions are no longer persecuted for
their looks and appearance but are praised for their achievements. If that is not the case for
Suzie, she can still be a role model for future girls, much like Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and
many other female politicians are for her.

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The environment for young girls who desire to have a powerful political position today is
still rocky and unequal. Unless the United States goes through a major upheaval and throws out
the patriarchal societal structure, powerful women will still struggle with gender opposition for
years to come. Hopefully however, young girls like Suzie Scott will learn that true leaders
regardless of their gender can overcome all of the bad cards dealt to them.

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Work Cited
Bassett, Laura. "Wendy Davis Celebrates 1-Year Filibuster Anniversary." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 25 June 2014. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.
"Center for American Women in Politics. Eagleton Institute of Politics. Rutgers, n.d. Web. 5
Mar. 2015
Doom, Judy. "She-Span." Tumblr.com. Tumblr, 2013. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.
Hayes, Danny, and Jennifer Lawless. "Voters Dont Care How Women in Politics
Look." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 23 June 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
Lawless, Jennifer L. "Sexism and Gender Bias in Election 2008: A More Complex Path for
Women in Politics." Politics and Gender 5.1 (2009): 70-80 Mar. 2009. Web. 03 Mar.
2015.
Luscombe, Belinda. "Why Some Women Hate Sarah Palin." Time. Time Inc., 02 Oct. 2008.
Web. 06 Apr. 2015.
Nicks, Denver. "Wendy Davis on the Filibuster That Mattered to Her Most." Time. Time, 10
Sept. 2014.

Web. 06 Apr. 2015.