Does Hillary Clinton face a different standard for honesty? [View all]

[yallerdawg]

Source: Washington Post, Janell Ross

Some "highlights" from the article, featuring 2 experts, Kelly Dittmar and Julie Dolan (qualifications at link).


Gender-related issues?

DOLAN: Absolutely. Her candidacy raises questions as to whether any woman can be president of the United States, whether female presidential candidates can ever overcome voter stereotypes and media narratives that question women’s suitability for the White House.

Clinton is the most experienced candidate in the field, but campaign rivals Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are leveling attacks against her that she’s not qualified for the job. In doing so, they're playing into a longstanding narrative that women lack what it takes to succeed in the male-dominated world of politics. The fact that two less-experienced male candidates are leveling this attack against her is telling. Neither Trump nor Sanders feel compelled to shore up their own credentials or justify their own relative lack of experience because they don’t need to; they benefit from a gendered double standard where men are automatically presumed qualified for public office and women are not.

An honesty issue?

DOLAN: They care, but it's not typically at the top of the list of desired character traits. In voting for the president, voters tend to prioritize masculine traits (toughness, decisiveness) over feminine traits (empathy, honesty). Because honesty is considered a feminine trait, it carries less sway with voters than do other competing traits.

Who's more honest?

DITTMAR: Research on gender stereotypes has shown that women are often perceived as more honest than their male counterparts. For example, a 2014 Pew poll found that 34 percent of respondents believe that women in high-level political offices are better than men at being honest and ethical, while just 3 percent see men as better on the same traits.

DOLAN: Voters typically draw on gender stereotypes in evaluating political candidates and tend to punish candidates who diverge from gender expectations. Because the generic female candidate is presumed more honest than the generic male candidate, voters judge a female candidate more harshly if she appears to violate the expectation of honesty. For male candidates, dishonesty is problematic but the critique is muted because generic male candidates are presumed to be somewhat less honest from the start.

Hillary vs Trump!

DITTMAR: ...Trump's "Crooked Hillary” moniker indicates that he will work to ensure that Clinton’s dishonesty is front and center in voters’ minds, contributing to these negative effects and deflecting attention from his own problems with truthfulness. Still, if voter surveys are any indicator, it’s likely that other considerations will matter more to voters’ decision-making in November. That may be why Clinton has focused more on Trump’s lack of qualifications to be president, emphasizing the risk of having him in the Oval Office.

Read it at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/29/does-hillary-clinton-face-a-different-standard-for-honesty/?hpid=hp_special-topic-chain_fix-honesty-1020am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory