Sexism can be defined as discriminating, stereotyping, or prejudicing an individual based on gender. It is intended to portray that one gender, usually the male, is superior to the other. This way, the opposite sex (usually the female) is seen as less superior and thus cannot participate in some responsibilities. These activities include politics, senior management in corporations, heavy engineering demands, and even some social life issues.
In many societies, men have been believed to be superior. This trend has been transferred from generation to another, even in religious circles. This perception has often relegated women to play second fiddle in both family and public life. Even women themselves perceive that they cannot beat men out there in a fair contest. Therefore, either gender exhibits this character. Misogyny is a hatred or dislike of females. This is exhibited by men.
This phenomenon has been the major cause for women not ascending to high positions of power the world over to become presidents, prime ministers, vice presidents, deputy prime ministers, or any form of power in governments. They are always considered weak to handle the daily pressure demanded by these high offices.
In 2008, the presidential elections of the United States of America helped us put this case into perspective. Both in the runners up to Democratic Party nomination of the presidential candidate, a woman was in the ticket, Hillary Clinton. She was the main challenger to Barrack Obama. In the run-up to the presidential election, the Republican Party had Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential nominee (Knowles 23).
The presidential nominee was John McCain in the Republican Party. In the run-up to her nomination, media was awash with speculation of the possibility of either Tim Pawlenty, who was the then Governor of Minnesota, or Mitt Romney who was a former Massachusetts’s governor, but in the end, it was Sarah Palin, who was the then governor of Alaska State, who got the nomination (Pettigrew, Thomas and Whittington 71).
The media were believed, to have contributed to the dismal performance of the Republican ticket from the campaigns in the run-up to the election, including the results. It was estimated that 49% to 32% among unaffiliated voters believed the media tried to hurt Palin at unwarranted levels based on her gender, especially as the year 2008, she made a lot of headlines on matters of her family life which sometimes should remain at best as private matters.
Her second-born daughter, Bristol, became pregnant as a teenager barely, out of high school. It brought into focus the role of the mother (Palin) as a responsible person to guide against early pregnancy (Hitt, Freeman, and Harrison 173). Earlier, Palin became a mother in April again of her fifth –born kid. During the whole campaign period, the Democratic ticket candidates were advocating for abortion at will when one got impregnated prematurely’ or on doctor’s advice.
The media simply blew the matter out of the window. In this, the media were not entirely to blame. Obama himself used derogatory statements while campaigning in Virginia against Palin. In one of her debates as a running mate, an interviewer journalist trapped her if she had a favorite magazine, but she fumbled, having been unable to name any (Pettigrew, Thomas and Whittington 23).
Before the party nominations, as mentioned earlier, Hillary Clinton ran against each other in the Democratic nomination process. The media antagonized the highly qualified and otherwise strong woman, considering her political resume. She was called names such as a hellish housewife, Nurse Ratched, a bitch, and a she-devil. Her gender was her source of misery with the members of the fourth estate.
In terms of a policy framework, she had awesome plans with the credential of an individual to deliver if she won the presidency right from day one in the office. This is a candidate who amassed 18,000,000 during the Democratic primaries which had never happened in the history of any party before. On the other hand, the antagonism she suffered was thought to be a thing of the past in neo-America. It is a country where civil society movements had come a long way in trying to mobilize the public for equal rights among all races (Knowles 34).
They were also mobilizing the public for equal rights between gender in exercising the right to cast a ballot, and this time, why not a woman of impeccable persona to try a shot at the presidency? Since the times of her husband, President Bill Clinton, at the white house, Hillary has become a popular and most admired woman with the Americans. The Democratic National Convention seemed to play to the media gallery in bashing the woman in her (Hitt, Freeman, and Harrison 662).
Several media articles have been suggesting that she should try once again in 2016, but still, they were the cause of her downfall’, and you can be sure they will run another set of a smear campaign against her.
This year’s presidential election would be very different from the last. The two main parties Democratic and Republican have no woman as a presidential or a vice-presidential nominee. The Democratic Party’s incumbency continues as Barracks Obama and Joe Biden as president and vice-president nominees, while the Republican Party nominated Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as presidential and vice-presidential candidates respectively.
It was speculated by media, voters, and the world at large that Sarah Palin would have attempted to vie for the white house with her impeccable career in politics, but it never came to pass she left everyone guessing. The media, then, have to focus on other issues other than sexism and misogyny. They might have to dwell mainly on important issues, as the state of the economy, welfare, job creation, foreign policy just to name but a few (Bibow 45).
Works Cited
Bibow, Jorg. Keynes on monetary policy, finance and uncertainty reassessing liquidity preference theory. Routledge, 2009. Print.
Hitt, Michael, Edward, Freeman, and Jeffrey, Harrison. The Blackwell handbook of strategic management. Wiley Blackwell, 2001. Print.
Knowles, Anne Kelly. Past time, past place: GIS for history. New York: ESRI, Inc. 2002. Print.
Pettigrew, Andrew, Howard Thomas and Richard, Whittington. Strategy and management. New York: Sage, 1977. Print.