The American Politician: Why We Elect Women

Graphic by Ellen Weinstein for Politico.

BY: Haley Glover, SUMMER 2020 COLLABORATOR AT POWER IN PLACE

I’ve heard it time and time again. Said off to the side at the dinner table, whispered in class, or mentioned in the news. The defensive, “I’m a femininist but I didn’t vote for Hillary,” the angry, “She doesn’t get to be president just because she’s a woman,” or the gender-neutral “I vote for policy, not the politician.” And I agreed. I agreed because I didn’t stop to think about who a politician is. Specifically who a politician is in America. “The who” varies across regions and states as a consequence of America’s vast land and diversity. The “American politician” cannot be defined by a set of qualities or qualifications because the politician is the physical manifestation of the voters. In the opening lines of The Constitution, America was defined as a representative democracy. Section two states, “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.” [1] With the establishment of The House of Representatives, the politician became “the representative '' of the people. We the people, allow our voice to be projected through the individuals we elect. We give up certain political freedoms in exchange for representation with the expectation that our interests will be heard by the greater American political system.                                                                         

Graphic via The Cut.

But who is listening? Over two hundred years after the drafting of the Constitution, and it’s added amendments, “the people” has come to encompass those outside the white male demographic. Yet, representation in politics has failed to answer to the whole of the American people. In order for politicians to represent their constituents they must understand and empathize with the lives of those they represent to accurately relay their interests in government. Some argue that who the politician is doesn’t matter, and that only their policy platform should be voted for. While I agree policy must be considered when voting, I do not believe it overshadows the identity of the politician. This is because identity matters. It matters because the identities of the American people have been politicized throughout history. 

Marginalized individuals have been forced to advocate for their right to be represented in government and have not stopped fighting since. They cannot stop until their voices are echoed in government. Today, politics has not only defined the identity of women but has infringed on the woman’s body. This is evident in the Supreme Court's most recent decision to uphold the Trump administration’s ACA’s birth control mandate. With this decision, employers can choose to not provide birth control coverage in their employees’ health plans if they have a strong religious or moral opposition. [2] Such a decision prohibits women employees from accessing safe means of contraception and marks women’s bodies as a place of reproduction and shame. The identity of women as mothers pervades government and the normalized female rhetorical strategies of female politicians. This identity can be diversified with the increase of women in politics. These women act as the voice of women across America, and with enough representation, they can be loud enough to make a change for the politicized woman. 

Graphic via Catalyst.

While I am currently speaking for women, this logic can be applied to all marginalized groups. As America continues to diversify, our government should be a representation of this change, not a tool that actively works against the marginalized. This election season I am voting for women because my identity as a woman has been written into law time and time again. And every time I see no woman behind the pen and hear only muffled female voices. 

References

[1] U.S. Const. art. I, § 2.

[2]Adamczyk, Alicia. “The Supreme Court’s ruling on the ACA’s birth control mandate could cost women hundreds of dollars each year.” Article Title.” CNBC, June 8, 2020. Accessed July 15, 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/08/what-to-know-about-the-supreme-courts-birth-control-mandate-decision

Haley Glover is an English and Political Science major at Middlebury College. Originally she is from a small town in Ohio and is particularly interested in the Midwest's political stage. She hopes to aid communities throughout middle America in a future law career.

To Aim Higher as a Woman

Graphic by Javier Jaen for the Wall Street Journal.

BY: ELIZA KING FREEDMAN, SUMMER 2020 COLLABORATOR AT POWER IN PLACE

A young boy tells his school teacher that he wants to be the President of the United States. That teacher is charmed, and, in the back of his or her mind, he or she believes that maybe he could really do it. 

A young girl tells her school teacher that she wants to be the President of the United States. That teacher is charmed, but, in the back of his or her mind, he or she believes that it is truly unlikely and assumes that that young girl will change her mind before graduating elementary school. 

Society teaches young boys to aspire to be CEOs, partners at law firms, lead surgeons, and tech pathfinders. And young girls are finally being taught that they can achieve in these same careers. However, for girls it is often not CEOs but employees, not partners but lawyers, not lead surgeons but participants in the field, and not pathfinders but lower-level coders. As females, we are asked to step back. We can be intelligent, we can get the grades in school, but after graduation only a few of us will fight against the male-dominated business world and win. Women make up 50.8 percent of the United States population, earning nearly half of all law and medical degrees handed out each year, however as of November 2018 women made up only 5 percent of CEOs of all Fortune 500 companies [1].

Power in Place represents far more than just a collection of stories. It is an organization that is teaching us, all women and girls, that we deserve to aim higher. We deserve to want to fill the House and the Senate and the White House, and we need to support the women who are paving the way for us right now. The female mind is chemically wired differently than the male mind, and that is not something to be ashamed of or something that should hold us back. We must embrace our womanhood, in whichever form it presents itself within us, and use it to our advantage. We do not have to learn to “be one of the boys” in order to succeed. Women are criticized in the media for their fashion choices, their emotions, and parts of their bodies that they have no control over. Hopefully, these realities will change with time. But in the meantime, it is organizations like Power in Place that will combat the media and the anti-feminist rhetoric that makes us question ourselves. 

That young girl is going to be the President of the United States. And we don’t know who she is yet, but we have to believe that any girl we meet could be her. 5 percent of CEOs is not a big enough number. None of the numbers are big enough. And it is my very personal hope that Power in Place, and organizations and movements like it, will give women and young girls the motivation and the option to strive for more.

References

[1] Warner, Judith, Nora Ellmann, and Diana Boesch. "The Women's Leadership Gap."  Center for American Progress. Last modified November 20, 2018. Accessed July 24, 2020. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2018/11/20/461273/womens-leadership-gap-2/#:~:text=Women%20are%20just%205%20percent,of%206%20percent%20in%202017.&text=Women%20are%20only%207%20percent,in%20the%20Fortune%20100%20companies.

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Eliza King Freedman is a rising sophomore at Middlebury College. She intends to major in International Politics and Economics with a minor in Architectural Studies. In addition to Power in Place, she also works for a horse therapy organization that specializes in the rehabilitation of veterans. She is most passionate about the study of nonproliferation and prison reform.

Imposter Syndrome: Who Does It Affect?

Photo by UnderPinned.

BY: Juliet Schulman-Hall, SUMMER 2020 COLLABORATOR AT POWER IN PLACE

Growing up, everyone has feelings of inadequacy. In quarantine this may be accentuated, with more competition for jobs and internships, limited face-to-face social interaction, and increased consumption of social media. Interacting through social media, such as Instagram, can make things worse, as social media often presents unrealistic highlights and high points of one's life. In reality, nearly every person struggles with feelings of inadequacy and some form of imposter syndrome. 

Imposter syndrome is the “idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications” [1]. This term was coined by two female psychologists named Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. They theorized that only women were affected by this syndrome, however, since then, research has disproved this claim. Even still, prior to researching imposter syndrome, when I discussed the syndrome with a small group of friends, all of us had thought that women suffered more from imposter syndrome than men. In reality, this may have been more of a commentary on how society forms and distorts one’s own perceptions of reality. Men are characteristically seen as less emotional and are socialized not to speak as often about their insecurities. Women, who are characterized as more emotional, find it easier to discuss their insecurities and may do so with more freedom. 

To better understand the ways in which imposter syndrome may or may not affect different groups of people, I crafted a survey that asked how often one feels inadequate, why they think this way, and so forth, which I presented to sixteen people. The results were surprising in that everyone had relatively the same insecurities, regardless of multiple external factors, including sex, race, and school attended. It is important to note that this was a small sample size of sixteen college students with nine of the people identifying as female. However, as I will highlight later, the results of this survey were consistent with many of the general conclusions about imposter syndrome arrived at by other, more established research that relied on larger and more sophisticated sample sizes and methodologies.  

The general conclusion from this survey is that people tend to have feelings of inadequacy one to three times times a week. This is consistent across gender, race, and kind of college (ie. historically women’s, co-ed, etc.). An intriguing note is that all of the men who responded wrote nothing or little in response to why they felt inadequate, perhaps tying to the societal expectation that men aren’t supposed to discuss their feelings. There were two major reasons as to why the participants feel insecure. The first is that the individuals do not feel smart enough, despite being at a top school. Individuals noted that they feel as though they shouldn’t be at their college. The second is insecurities about one's body—this was a recurring answer for women and those who are genderfluid. Body image is difficult to deal with as social media reinforces what a ‘perfect body’ is supposed to look like. All insecurities mentioned in the quiz stem from comparing oneself to others. 

As evidenced by academic studies that I viewed, and as reinforced by the results I found, there are small differences between the way in which men versus women experience insecurities and portray them. However, it is important to note that everyone “doubt[s] their abilities and ha[s] a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud” [2]. This is something that society reinforces in a multitude of ways. Insecurities are a part of human nature, however, as one study points out, one needs to learn and have “the confidence and/or courage to embrace vulnerability” [3]. What one shows others is often not what is happening in one’s life. Social media influencers have begun to display this through the multitude of photos they take as well as noting their insecurities during the photoshoot. This is a great start in demonstrating that life is imperfect and it is unrealistic to expect to achieve perfection—a movement that should be extended past social media and into the real world.

References

[1] Abrams, Abigail. “Yes, Impostor Syndrome Is Real: Here's How to Deal With It.” Time. Time, June 20, 2018. https://time.com/5312483/how-to-deal-with-impostor-syndrome/.

[2] Nedegaard, Randall. 2016. “Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: How My Students Trained Me to Teach Them.” Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping 22 (4): 52–59. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sxi&AN=126936993&site=eds-live&scope=site.

[3] Cowie, Megan, Logan Nealis, Simon Sherry, Paul Hewitt, and Gordon Flett. Perfectionism and academic difficulties in graduate students: Testing incremental prediction and gender moderation, November 23, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.11.027.

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Juliet Schulman-Hall is a rising junior at Smith College majoring in English Language & Literature, minoring in Sociology, and concentrating in Poetry. At Smith, she is involved in Emulate Magazine, the club volleyball team, and the Sophian Newspaper. She is passionate about criminal justice reform and animal rights and advocacy and is the Communications Lead for an animal nonprofit called Global Strays.