Why Bernie’s Finger Wagging Matters
In April 2015, the Barbara Lee Family Foundation (BLFF) and the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) launched Presidential Gender Watch 2016, a project to track, analyze, and illuminate gender dynamics in the 2016 presidential election. With the help of expert scholars and practitioners, Presidential Gender Watch worked for 21 months to further public understanding of how gender influences candidate strategy, voter engagement and expectations, media coverage, and electoral outcomes in campaigns for the nation’s highest executive office. The blog below was written for Presidential Gender Watch 2016, as part of our collective effort to raise questions, suggest answers, and complicate popular discussions about gender’s role in the presidential race.
Sometimes, a presidential candidate says something, and it’s immediately clear that gender dynamics are at play. And no, I’m not going to go through all of the examples Donald Trump has provided us with (but here’s a list from Huffington Post, just in case you need one).
Sometimes, however, it’s less clear. At Sunday night’s Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan, Bernie Sanders said to Hillary Clinton: “Excuse me, I’m talking.” Was that remark inherently sexist? Well, there’s a lot of disagreement about that, aptly summed up by Margaret Hartmann at New York Magazine.
Words matter. A lot. But images matter too. If someone glanced at the TV while the debate was on mute, they would have seen Sanders pointing his finger at Clinton and seemingly invading her personal space. Is that image fraught with gender dynamics? You bet.
Some say that is just Sanders’s style, and his interaction would have been the same if Clinton were a man. While it may be true that Sanders would act the same, regardless opponent, the gender dynamics of the situation would have been different. Women are taught to be consistently aware of their personal space. Even when invasions of that personal space are innocent, or slight, or accidental, there is a power dynamic at play.
Research shows that women tend to occupy less space in public, while men are “more likely to have their legs spread at a 10- to 15-degree angle and keep their arms 5 to 10 degrees away from their bodies.” Turns out that “manspreading” is real. In other words, women have less space to begin with. And, as any woman who has taken public transit, tried to work her way through a crowd, or gone toe-to-toe with a man in a meeting knows, it feels as though women’s personal boundaries consistently receive less respect than men’s do.
Does Sanders know about the gender dynamic at play? He should. After all, Rick Lazio was criticized for invading Clinton’s personal space almost 16 years ago. As the Washington Post’s Janell Ross points out, Sanders “has almost certainly had the same advice and information that every male candidate gets about the need to be constantly mindful about coming across like a chauvinist or a bully when on a debate stage facing a female competition.”
So, did the podium placement and camera angles matter in this case? Of course. But we can’t blame it all on CNN.