Written by Elisabeth Schumm
There is a double standard between how we treat men in media and how we treat women. I say we, because even though you and I are probably (hopefully) not discriminating, until our society changes, we as a society are failing. There are so many outstanding women who have been pushed down and underestimated because they dare to do the same exact thing a man does. If a woman dares to become too angry, too passionate, or too defensive they are criticized and dismissed as incompetent. If a man gets angry, passionate, or defensive, they are seen as strong, abled, and competent. This double standard can be seen over and over again. Below are a few examples that prove this to be the case.
Taylor Swift
As much as women are criticized for the things that they cannot control, men get away free. There is this overarching theme of the double standard. We allow men to get away with so much, but if a woman tried the same thing, she would be slandered. In an interview, popular music artist Taylor Swift once said, “when a man does something, it’s strategic, when a woman does something, it’s calculated. A man is allowed to react, a woman can only overreact.” Taylor Swift has addressed this topic multiple times. Her song The Man covers this theme in its entirety. She sings about how much further she could go if she was a man. How her critics would say she “hustled and put in the work” instead of questioning “how much of [her fame]” she deserves.
Hillary Clinton
“What Happened” is a book written by former Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady, and New York’s first ever female senator. In this book, she opened up about her struggles about being a woman in politics. In her book she states that “her face, her body, her voice, her demeanor” fell under constant criticism (Clinton 116). There is this unfair standard that women have to follow simply because they are women. While a man will be criticized for their ideas or their logical fallacies, which are all things they can control, a woman will often be criticized for things beyond their control. For Hillary Clinton it was looks and for the scandals created by her husband. Why is that we as a culture, attack women for the things they cannot change? To be a woman in the public perception means to be scrutinized in every single way and under every single angle. When you are perfect they criticize you for your looks, when you are imperfect, you get criticized for everything else. Every moved has to be “calculated” because if they aren’t, nobody will take you seriously as a woman. You will be labeled incompetent, or worse, emotional. There is no room for making a mistake.
Kamala Harris
The rhetoric that we have seen over and over again doesn’t stop. It has no boundaries. In an interview from 2018, Senator (now Vice President) Kamala Harris navigated a tricky situation when popular daytime host, Ellen DeGeneres, bombarded her with questions about potentially running for President in the upcoming election. While Vice President Kamala Harris brought up many important topics, such as the protection of immigrant children, Ellen DeGeneres completely washed over those topics to ask questions about the presidency. Instead of getting angry or showing any emotion, Vice President Kamala Harris declined questions about a potential run for President. I think it is important to note that if she had blown up at Ellen DeGeneres, she would have received so much hateful backlash. It would have sparked a “conversation” about her competency as a Senator and her ability to keep her emotions in check. Had a man been in that position, he would have received very little backlash for blowing up at the talk show host. It would have been well within his right because when a man gets angry, people listen. When a woman gets angry, people talk. This goes back to Taylor Swift’s comment about reactions. A man in that situation would be reacting. Vice President Kamala Harris would have been over-reacting.
Why?
I find myself questioning these glaring issues. Why are women put down so much more than men? Why aren’t we judging men the same way we judge women? It is because in our society women are still seen as less than. In our society, woman have to prove they belong where men deserve to be. In one of the articles we read this year “Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership,” the author talks about the need to “reduce the subjectivity of performance evaluation.” This really stuck out to me because earlier in the article it talked about how in a Phillip Goldberg study, when random students evaluated papers, “[w]omen received lower evaluations unless the essay was on a feminine topic” and that this in 40 years, hadn’t really changed. There is a discrepancy in evaluation based on gender, and the author brings this up twice. Women are stuck in a cycle where they are valued less simply because they are women.
This idea of subjective performance evaluation can be seen in media when we look at how women are judge verses men. There is this expectation to be perfect when you are a woman, but not when you are a man. This perfection comes from the idea that men deserve to be in their field. Little boys are taught that they can do anything and be anything, therefore in adulthood they already seem themselves this way. However, little girls are expected to hold their tongues, to act dainty and delicate. When you teach one gender to be bold and the other to be mild, there will always be a disconnect. And, when those children grow up, they will pass the expectations on.
There is a double standard when it comes to women in media. There are so many hoops that a female must jump through to be taken seriously by the public. They are told to always smile, but not too much because you don’t want to seem overly enthusiastic. But, they are also told not to smile too little either. You don’t want to seem uninterested or cold. Make sure you dress nicely, but don’t show too much skin. You don’t want to be seen as scandalous. However, be wear of too little skin. You don’t want to seem like a prude. There are so many rules that women have to follow when they live in the public eye and often it feels impossible to tell which rules to follow and which ones to ignore. Chances are you’ll get scrutinized and criticized either way.
Works Cited
Clinton, Hillary Rodham. What Happened. Simon & Schuster, 2017.
Eagly, A., & Carli, L. L. (2018, November 6). Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://hbr.org/2007/09/women-and-the-labyrinth-of-leadership.
“Will Senator Kamala Harris Run for President?” Youtube, uploaded by TheEllenShow, 5 April 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLBusGrN0Co
@_dailyreminders_. “Are men and women actually treated differently.” TikTok, 14 Oct. 2021, https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8AUDq4C/
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