Feature: Clinton likely to crack "glass ceiling," but gender bias remains

For 65-year-old Gail Summerskill, a professor of English from Strayer University, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is held to a higher standard just because she is a female politician.

"People talked about how she scream, but they would never say a man is screaming," Summerskill with short red hair and red-framed glasses told Xinhua at her home in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Being a grandmother, Clinton was even suspected by the public for possibly having too much distraction from her grand children. But for male presidential candidates, being a grandfather is never a problem, she said.

"She came out as such a brilliant partner when she was the first lady, but people were like: too much, you are supposed to be dealing with curtains," said Summerskill.

Since her childhood dream of becoming a woman astronaut was shattered, when she wrote to NASA at the age of 13 only to get the reply that "there would not be any women astronauts," Clinton has succeeded in making many cracks in the "glass ceiling."

Her mother, who had a tough childhood, has inspired Clinton to devote herself to improving the health care and education systems especially for children, and she helped create the successful Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as the first lady from 1992-2000.

In 2000, she became the first woman to serve as a U.S. senator from New York. After she came up short in her presidential run in 2008, she told her supporters: "Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it."

BIGGER CHALLENGE

However, to make the last strike to break the highest "glass ceiling," Clinton seems to face a much bigger challenge not only because she is a woman but also because she is a Clinton.

Numerous research studies have shown that Hillary Clinton has been subjected to more negative media coverage as compared to her opponents, including Donald Trump, said Dianne Bystrom, director of Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, Iowa State University.

"Women candidates often face greater scrutiny of appearance, experience, and their personal life," said Kelly Dittmar, assistant professor of political science at Rutgers university-Camden and scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics.

"Clinton continues to be criticized on her hair, her clothes, and questioned about who will really be in charge (she or Bill Clinton) if she wins the presidency," Dittmar said.

In addition, the Clintons have been subjected to attacks by right-wing conservative political operatives, right-wing media, and even mainstream media for more than 30 years, said Bystrom.

The recent media hype of clinton's health scare climaxed the coverage which scrutinizes the female candidate from her appearance to the way she talks.

Clinton's presidential campaign acknowledged that she had pneumonia after her early exit from a Spet. 11 memorial ceremony in New York, making the concern of her health headline for the next few days.

Jennifer Gunter, a doctor both certified in Canada and the U.S., who blogs about medical and political matters, dismissed the public panic as unfounded in a post on Sept. 13.

"Let me be very clear, if you can be like Trump, a 70-year-old man with a normal blood pressure on a statin who released no other valuable health information, or like McCain, a 71-year-old man on a statin with a history of melanoma, and run for the highest office, you can certainly be a 68-year-old woman on a blood thinner and thyroid medication who had a bout of pneumonia," she wrote.

She added that "this focus on Clinton's health is either a complete lack of understanding about medicine, health, and disability or an egregious double-standard where being a woman is considered a medical condition."

Retired production supervisor from a compressor and generator factory, Dave Kielar, who also lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, said that he did not think Hillary Clinton is strong enough to lead the country. "She has made comments that if she is elected, she is going to put her husband in charge of this and in charge of that."

"It's not another term of Bill Clinton. She has to have her own policies which cannot rely on what her husband did in the past but what she could do in the future."

However, Kielar said he did not object a woman being elected as the president. If Clinton can stand on her own feet, and stops referring to what her husband is going to do if she is elected, people would think she is strong enough to lead the country.

This made the upcoming first national debate between Clinton and Trump on Monday even more important as she will elaborate on her national policies before the public in the debate.

"There are people who do not support a woman being president because they do not think that is an appropriate role for women to play. But I do not think there are enough of them," said Debbie Walsh, director of Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics of Rutgers University.

She said that there are few who would even say it. "It is one of the things that socially unacceptable to say."

Walsh said she thought it is a close election, if Clinton were to lose the election, "I do not think her gender will be the reason."

AMBIVALENT SITUATION

In addition to being held to a higher standard, there are multiple challenges that Clinton faces as a woman candidate. To campaign for the White House, she has to prove she is both "woman enough" as a woman and "man enough" for the job of president.

"All this said, Hillary Clinton is not a typical woman candidate, most voters know and have formed an opinion of her that, while influenced by her gender, is highly individualized based on her long tenure in the public spotlight. Therefore, stereotypical advantages and disadvantages don't automatically apply to her," Dittmar said.

Summerskill said that there might be an ambivalent situation for Clinton. On one hand, "you can't be so much into women's issues where you alienate the men," while on the other hand, "you can't win (with women's support) and then lose their trust" by not keeping promises to tackle gender inequality.

"If you press the woman issues such as the equal pay too much, you can be seen as a one-trick pony, like all you care about is only women," she said, adding that it's like Barack Obama who really had to negotiate how much he was going to talk about being African American and helping the African American population when he was running for president.

Meanwhile, Bystrom said Hillary Clinton receives very favorable ratings when she is serving in public office. She has been named by Gallup's annual poll as the most admired woman in the world for a record 20 times. She receives lower evaluations when she runs for political office, especially the U.S. presidency as the first woman in history to be nominated by a major political party.

Dittmar pointed out that women voters outnumber and outvote men in U.S. elections. They are key to any presidential election outcome. Women are also more likely than men to vote for Democratic candidates.

Trump's gender strategy might help him among men who feel a sense of resentment about women's empowerment and seek to return to more traditional gender power dynamics that benefit men and masculinity, said Dittmar. "But I don't believe it will win him nearly to counter the support he is losing among women."

Women are also more likely to be late-deciders, meaning candidates need to make their case to women for the duration of the presidential campaign, Dittmar said.

UNDERREPRESENTATION

"We need to remember that Hillary Clinton is the first woman in the United States to be nominated for president by one of the two major political parties. This is something new for us," said Bystrom.

Fewer women, than men, run for political office in the United States, and that is at the heart of the problem, she said.

Statistics show in open seat races (races without an incumbent) women candidates win just as often, or even more so, than men. However, women are much less likely to run for political office in the U.S, Bystrom said.

Studies have shown that women in the U.S. have less political ambition than men - women are less confident about their qualifications for political office, even when they are just as qualified - or more so - than male political candidates.

"Women actually set higher standards for themselves, compared to men, before running for political office," she said.

Walsh said that even if the U.S. is to elect a woman president in 2016, "we would still be looking at a state legislature that is under a quarter women, a congress that is under a quarter women."

"If a women is elected president, it is a milestone and it is important, but it does not mean the problem of women's underrepresentation is solved."

She said more work needs to be done at the party level, particularly on the Republican side. Democratic women make up about a third of all democratic members of congress, about a third of all Democratic state legislators. But on the Republican side, in congress, women only make up nine or 10 percent, and about 17 percent among state legislators.

Summerskill said not getting equal pay is still a problem for women in the U.S., and she felt that gender bias had impacted her own life.

She said that women have always been teachers, so teachers do not get paid well. "It saddens me that as someone who has spent 39 years in the field, I never make much money. That is not right."

To earn extra bucks for traveling and to meet interesting people, Summerskill and her freelance photographer husband Robert have been airbnb hosts for five years and received nearly 100 guests.

American women who work full time, year round are paid only 79 cents for every dollar paid to men -- and for women of color, the wage gap is even larger, according to the National Women's Law Center.

"To make things really change, it is going to take more women in power," Summerskill said.

"We need to get used to having people of color and women in important places and we are not going to have a big deal about it," she said.

Source : XINHUA