Miss Representation Page #6

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you know, Nancy Pelosi

I think if Speaker Pelosi

were still capable

of human facial expression,

we'd see she'd be embarrassed

Baker:
Nancy Pelosi, that...

hey, get another facelift, lady.

Another reason why it's very rare

to find a woman worthy

of serving in political office.

Ding dong! The wicked witch

is dead

Limbaugh:

And it's bye-bye, Pelosi!

Levin:
Hillary Rodham Clinton,

her "Thighness,"

is no better than Dumbo

with the big ears.

When she raises her voice,

and when a lot of women do,

you know, as I say,

it reaches a point where

every husband in America...

You know what'?

Has heard it one time or another.

You get a woman in the Oval Office,

most powerful person in the world.

What's the downside'?

You mean besides the PMS

and the mood swings'?

There's probably

no more powerful influence

in the way we view power

than the way media treats power.

And media treats power

as defined by men

because it has been,

throughout our generation

and the ones before,

generally defined that way.

Falk:
When press representations

of women who are,

you know, running for

the highest office in the land

are focusing, for example

on how women look

instead of what they've done

or their issue positions,

that's got to impact the audience

in terms of how they evaluate

and judge those women.

One of the things it does is

it trivializes them.

It makes women seem less powerful.

Pozner:
During the Democratic

National Convention in '84,

when Geraldine Ferraro was running,

she was introduced

on national television

as the first female

Vice Presidential candidate,

size 6.

So this is not new.

Walsh:

My colleague did a study

looking at Elizabeth Dole

and her race for president.

She was coming in second in Iowa

at the time after George Bush,

and there was much more coverage

of her appearance

than there was of the substance

of what she was talking about.

Lawless:

When I ran for Congress,

I was campaigning at grocery stores,

and a women came up to me,

and she put her arms around me,

and she whispered, "Don't worry."

You don't look nearly as fat

in real life as you do on TV."

The week before the election,

a man came up to me,

and he said,

You know, you seem great,

"but I don't feel like I could

vote for you for Congress.

I feel like I should hire you

as a babysitter."

When I first ran for public office,

which is now over 20 years ago,

although my youngest was

a senior in high school,

the question I was

most frequently asked was.

"Who's gonna be taking care

of your children?"

And, of course,

it's one of those questions

that I don't think

a man has ever been asked

when he has run for office.

If you look at the women who ran

who had honorary titles,

like Senator Clinton,

if the press drops that title

and instead refers to them

as "Mrs. Clinton,"

this is a way to kind of diminish

some of her accomplishments.

Feinstein:
There is such a thing

as a media bias.

For example, media will write

in the same way

about a man and a woman.

Senator X, who is a woman,

"Complained that..."

And in the same thing,

Senator Y "Stated that..."

So the man will get a stated

and the woman will get

the negative verb "complained."

Women were twice as likely

to be described emotionally

as were men,

and by painting women

as more emotional than men,

we perpetuate the stereotype

that women are emotional,

therefore they're irrational,

therefore they can't handle a crisis,

therefore they should not be

in leadership positions.

I remember so many times during

the campaign, people asking,

"Well, is she tough enough

to be Commander In Chief?"

[chuckling ] Well,

I've known plenty of men

who aren't tough enough

to be Commander In Chief,

and nobody asked that question.

[voice breaking] Making sure

that these kids have a shot

at the American Dream

[sobs] like I did...

is important.

Gosh, what do you think they

would have done to Nancy Pelosi

if she had gotten all worked up'?

They would've said that

she's unstable, couldn't do the job.

Ooh. Yes.

Welcome to America.

A woman in power is often seen

as a negative thing.

We associate all the worst

aspects of power,

and we translate those

to a woman seeking to achieve power.

Heidman:
One of the key ways

in which media played a role

in the primary

was to talk about

Hillary Clinton's ambition

as though it were a bad thing.

When Barack Obama speaks,

men hear,

"Take off for the future."

And when Hillary Clinton speaks,

men hear,

[high-pitched]

"Take out the garbage."

When she reacts

the way she reacts to Obama

with just the look...

the look toward him,

looking like everyone's first wife

standing outside of probate court.

I don't know what

they're getting at here, Tucker.

What do you think

they're saying about Hillary'?

I don't know, but that is so perfect

[chuckling] I have often said

when she comes on television,

I involuntarily cross my legs.

I know you do.

Heidman:
Hillary Clinton

had hecklers following her,

saying, "Iron my shirt."

Man:
Iron my shirt!

- Some people think...

- Iron my shirt!

- ...We bring about change by.

- Iron my shirt!

Heidman:
She was frequently called

a b*tch in mainstream media.

Beck:

She's a stereotypical b*tch.

You know what I mean'?

Obama did great in February,

and that's because

that was Black History Month.

And now Hillary's doing much better

'cause it's White B*tch Month, right'?

If she knew how it made her look...

alternately soppy and bitchy...

she'd stop it,

but she can't help herself, can she'?

Her credentials

were constantly questioned.

Let's not forget...

and I'll be brutal...

the reason she's a U.S. Senator,

the reason she's a candidate

for President,

the reason she may be

a front-runner

- is her husband messed around.

- Woman:
Yeah, but...

That's how she got to be Senator

We keep forgetting it.

She didn't win there on her merit.

Heidman:
Sarah Palin presented

a very different image.

She is the first national,

high-profile, female candidate

who presented herself

in very feminine terms...

as a "real woman."

She's the American Dream.

Women want to be her.

Men want to mate with her

I want her laying next to me in bed.

There were pictures shot

between her legs

of folks at the

Republican National Convention.

In a nutshell,

she was pornified and ditzified.

I don't want to say she's a ditz,

but [chuckles] last night,

my stripper's fake name

was Sarah Palin.

Yo, let me tell you something

about Sarah Palin, man.

[laughter]

She's good masturbation material.

- Oh!

- Oh!

Heidman:

So, Hillary Clinton

tried to be properly masculine

and properly feminine,

and she lost.

Sarah Palin puts out

this different image

of, shall we say, hyper-femininity,

and she gets beaten up in

really degrading, gendered ways.

[laughter]

But tonight,

we are crossing party lines

to address the now very ugly role

that sexism is playing

in the campaign.

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