What will a female VP nominee face? We already know
The stakes are high for Joe Biden’s choice for vice president, whom he has pledged will be a woman and at this moment in history, potentially a Black woman. Given his age at 77, Biden’s vice president could inherit the presidency. It is more likely that she will lead the ticket in 2024.
Many Americans shudder to imagine what the eventual nominee will face when the Trump machine rolls out its opposition research, which could be either real or invented. In 2016, we witnessed the weaponization of gender in multiple ways, from then-candidate Donald Trump’s lurking behind Hillary Clinton during a debate to his speculation about her “stamina.” For women of color, Trump’s assaults have exploited the intersection of race, gender and citizenship. In January, he tweeted that Congresswomen Alexandria OcasioCortez, D-N.Y., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Rashida Tlaib, DMich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.” In his view, the women’s outspoken support for progressivism proved they were not real Americans.
But the GOP playbook that will be engaged against Biden’s pick for vice president goes much further back than 2016. In fact, the right has villainized women leaders from all backgrounds for so long that, over time, they became foils for the conservative movement itself. The National linked the controversy over Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial to their outrage over the abandonment of the war itself. They did so by deeming it a memorialization of “Jane Fonda’s contribution to ensuring that our soldiers died in vain.” So thorough was the opprobrium for Fonda’s anti-war activities that no more needed to be said.
In short, what we will see in 2020 is the culmination of 75 years of the development of techniques for what the feminist Andrea Dworkin named “Woman-Hating.” While not new, this GOP attack has aimed to make voters more afraid of a world run by women whom they have been led to perceive as dangerous, radical, immoral, inept or just “unlikeable” than by men who have proven themselves to be exactly that. And it has been broadly effective: Even among voters who say they would support a woman for president, a majority finds fault with any individual woman who runs.
Let’s not become too dispirited, though. One advantage Democrats have is that, like a football team whose aging quarterback can’t adjust his approach, these GOP plays will be easy to see coming — so easy that we should take the opportunity now to reclaim their power by naming them for the women who provoked the GOP to develop them in the first place.
Recognizing that Republican anti-woman strategies are far from novel, while tipping our caps to the diverse set of women who have withstood them, will make these attacks no less offensive, no less sexist and no less racist. But it may make them less effective — and right now that could make all the difference.
Here are some strategies we can expect:
· The Eleanor Roosevelt: Focus on and exaggerate any and all perceived flaws in her physical appearance.
· The Shirley Chisholm: Sit back if liberal women debate her viability as a candidate. Decry the hate groups that send her death threats.
· The Billie Jean King: Mock her for taking everything too seriously. Double down when she wins the vice presidential debate.
· The Geraldine Ferraro: Attack her for her husband’s business activities. Connect them to his ethnic heritage.
· The Jocelyn Elders: Pepper her with questions about sex education and abortion. Wait for evangelicals to organize letterwriting campaigns to oust her.
· The Janet Reno: Wonder aloud whether she might be a lesbian. Laugh along when a man plays her on SNL.
· The Dixie Chicks: Call her unpatriotic and encourage conservatives to boycott her events. Insist that she just “shut up.”
The field is set for an utterly predictable set of attacks on the Democrat’s choice for vice president. Their viciousness will surely increase if she is a woman of color. The only remaining question is whether such tactics continue to work or if voters understand that attacking powerful women is just what some Republicans do. With that understanding, Democrats should immediately act to protect the women on Biden’s list with strong counter-messages and, as Barack Obama received during the 2008 primary, full secret service detail. More importantly, they should adopt the approach that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congresswoman OcasioCortez share: show no fear and just “win, baby.”