Is nasty politics a man’s business?
Musing on Trump-Kelly
Fox host Megyn Kelly is on vacation. But her debate tussle with Donald Trump lingers, begging questions of politics and gender. At that first Republican debate, of course, she asked the improbable windbag frontrunner about the many nasty words he’s used to describe women over the years, and he replied by warning her: “I’ve been very nice to you, but I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me.”
Trump cutting off Kelly was pretty much how he deals with most people. It wasn’t the debate itself that was striking as much as the fracas over the debate since.
Fox was obviously nervous about Trump and tried to kiss and make up. He quickly appeared on its morning show, where he swatted softball questions — then before long got an hour with Sean Hannity, where he swatted more.
Meantime, Trump has swirled at the center of a national hoopla over his clear post-debate suggestion Kelly was menstruating, with diverse ideological rebukes running smack into his persistently solid early poll numbers.
Everything else (remember Hillary Clinton?) is drowned out amid a fractious post-mortem that constitutes “a classic example of the culturally resonant dynamic of politics at this level being (seen as) men’s business,” says Corrine McConnaughy, a political scientist at George Washington University studying race and gender.
If a woman steps in, as did Kelly, and asks the same sorts of questions as her male colleagues, the blowback gets personal.
Academic literature shows how men tend to engage more actively in and know a bit more about national politics. Women, in turn, often see national politics as more masculine and muscular.
That’s not the same with local politics, where their interest and participation is far greater.
Women — and this is the research talking, not me — have a sense that they can have more impact locally than nationally. They see more key figures who look like themselves than on the national scene.
Other studies suggest that younger women are even more disaffected by national politics than older ones, even more turned off by media immersion in polling and talk of who’s up or down.
Younger men and younger women give similar answers about their career choices — with one exception: When asked about running for office or working for a charity, men prefer politics, women charities.
“Men think you get involved to change the world, women don’t,” McConnaughy said. They hate the idea that “for a week all we will talk about is whether a candidate was right to call some woman who asked him a question names.”
The continuing talk about that has zilch to do with policy or how government will work. It involves a conflict between a man and a woman, with the man holding the Trump card. That upper hand is underscored by Fox News’ post-debate pandering to The Donald, lest his base audience somehow turn against the network. One final wrinkle: Women, though turned off by lots of the political rough-and-tumble, tend to vote at a higher rate than men. Might a few GOP women gravitate now to Carly Fiorina?
The playbook for conservative female candidates is skimpy, says McConnaughy. Because there have been so few of them on the national stage, we just don’t quite know what’s best for them.
But they do better, she says, when they run “as women,” referencing women’s issues and not avoiding gender.
You can be tough, sure, but remind people of embracing female roles, like being a mom.
Clinton seems to be playing by that very script, though views of her are pretty much locked-in.
But the GOP’s anti-female brand is also locked-in. Democrats own issues, like equal pay, that appeal to most women, young and old.
That won’t change no matter how often Trump says “I cherish women.”