Gender stereotypes in political life

Dr Gabrielle Jamela Hosein

MOST people dismiss gender stereotypes in political life.

We are keenly attuned to racialised "dog whistles" or coded or suggestive language in political messaging which is meant to draw support from one group or another.

The group that feels targeted is typically more attuned and may feel the sense of attack they are experiencing is denied by perceived opponents or the public. This means that what is seen by one group as racist, or "racial" in "Trinbagonian," may be unnoticed, trivialised, or dismissed by another.

Gender stereotypes, however, typically go unnoticed by anyone unless extreme or racialised. This is because they are considered normal or natural by many, and where women and men might disagree, women’s (and feminists’) views are typically scorned as deluded, exaggerated, or wrong. We therefore think about politics as if gender stereotypes are not constantly at play.

Gender nonetheless appears in election campaigning. For example, in the US, abortion is a gendered issue because debates are informed by ideals about femininity, sexuality and motherhood, the rights and power women should have over themselves and others, and the rights that others, such as child-fathers, the state or even a foetus, should have over women. The subordination of women rests in the very fact of their biology as female humans, and the social – and therefore feminine or gendered – expectations placed only on them and their bodies.

Gender appeared in our own election campaign in terms of the targeting of trans people, and youth and adults who do not conform to expectations of masculinity or femininity. Pre-election, the UNC’s press releases presented trans rights as a threat to the women and children, and were deeply transphobic, creating misleading panic about gender pronouns, people assigned male status at birth using female washrooms, and other US right-wing hyperbole.

Commentators and bloggers didn’t seriously call attention to these "dog whistles," meant to stir up an "us" vs "them" circling of wagons, though they misrepresented those they targeted and reproduced the myth that biology determines gender.

Keep in mind that gender refers to our beliefs about masculinity and femininity, our expectations and what we consider ideal ways to be, and how people reproduce, negotiate, challenge, and transform these ideals.

In my first television interview after Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Penelope Beckles won their general election and internal party battles, the first thing I was asked to discuss was whether “women are soft in leadership” given that (apparently) “many become apprehensive and nervous when a woman is at the wheel.”

I was astounded, of course. Two women had just led long epic battles against male leadership considered both more powerful and more competent than them, and they roundly trounced them. Persad-Bissessar had, in fact, defeated many internal battles before annihilating the PNM in the North, East, Central, and South.

Yet, despite all evidence of strength like steel, somehow the stereotype of these two women as soft prevailed.

Perhaps, it is because they do not appear as domineering or vicious in the style of the men in their midst. Is it, then, that women’s styles of power are not recognised unless they appear in a way we recognise as masculine or authoritarian, toxic or violent?

PM Persad-Bissessar and Opposition Leader Beckles’s styles are clearly not Dr Rowley’s, but in no way are these women soft. Indeed, the PM herself had to warn those in government not to mistake her kindness for weakness. Imagine any man in government ever having to use those words.

This brings me back to under-recognised gendered "dog whistles." The hyper-attacks on Persad-Bissessar’s physical health are an example. This strategy was deeply integrated into the election campaign and will continue, and it is interwoven with the discourse of her as weak and frail, and therefore unfit to lead. This, despite her “who ent dead, badly wounded” victory over the PNM, and its phalanx of fit and healthy men.

Soon after her win, fake news about a stroke and amputated toes circulated. One person, who I thought should have known better, compared Persad-Bissessar to Biden, who was forced to step down from his campaign, not merely because of his physical state, but his obvious and overwhelming mental incapacity.

Present evidence of such comparison, like the amputations, is not there, but stereotypes of women as weak, soft, unfit, frail, and mentally feeble are a bedrock on which this kind of framing relies as a cognitive shortcut or a "dog whistle."

Politically expedient, gendered stereotypes are wielded and cause harm. Just listen carefully.

Diary of a mothering worker

Entry 556

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