Woman President: Confronting Postfeminist Political Culture

1 The First Shall Be Last

1 The First Shall Be Last The “Pioneer” Frame as a Constraint for Women Presidential Candidates T he 2006 midterm election season seemed to portend a new era in US presidential politics. With buzz about the 2008 presidential campaign well under way, the August 28, 2006, issue of Time magazine put the junior US senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, on its cover, with seasoned political reporter Karen Tumulty claiming that “Hillary would step into the [US presidential] race as the instant front runner.” Clinton was popular with her New York constituents, had proven ability to raise money, and her candidacy was treated seriously—even enthusiastically—by many mainstream media outlets. The early buzz seemed to confirm polling data that suggested that US voters were willing to elect someone other than a white, heterosexual, Christian male to the highest office in the land. A 2005 poll conducted jointly by the White House Project and Roper Public Affairs reported that 79 percent of respondents stated that they were “very comfortable ” or “somewhat comfortable” with a woman US president, with only 19.4 percent of respondents reporting to be “not very comfortable” or “not at all comfortable.” The results of a 2006 Gallup poll reported more modest support for women, with 61 percent of respondents indicating that “Americans are ready to elect a woman,” followed closely by African American or black candidates (58 percent). The same poll rated public receptiveness for a woman president higher than that for presidential candidates “with other background characteristics, including Hispanic (41), Asian (33), LatterDay Saint or Mormon (29), Atheist (14), or gay or lesbian (7).” Since before woman suffrage, US women have envisioned the moment when they could lead the nation, yet, ninety years after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, US women held only a small percentage of seats in Congress and no woman presidential candidate from a major party had made it past the primaries. According to a list compiled by the Interparliamentary Union and ranking the percentage of national parliamentary seats held by women worldwide, the United States ranked an abysmal seventysecond in the world in November 2010. Similarly, in terms of presidential The First Shall Be Last 17 leadership, the United States lags behind countries as diverse as Ireland, New Zealand, the Philippines, Germany, Liberia, Great Britain, and Chile, among others, which each have elected women as heads of state. Given the historical and cultural resistance to women leaders in the United States, it was no surprise that by October 2006, speculation favored the theory that Senator Clinton would leverage her considerable amount of Democratic funding to secure the role of Senate minority/majority leader, paving the way for the significantly less experienced US senator from Illinois , Barack Obama, to emerge as a popular Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. In fact, an October 23, 2006, Time magazine cover announced journalist Joe Klein’s theory under the headline “Why Barack Obama Could Be the Next President.” Of course, cultural barriers exist that have typically precluded the election of any nonwhite male, and the national popularity of African Americans such as Obama and Colin Powell represents a broadening of the US presidential image. Nonetheless, despite Americans’ professed willingness to admit women to the Oval Office, research demonstrates the resilience of the cultural, political, and economic barriers barring the door to women. This chapter argues that the “pioneer” frame represents a significant discursive component impeding US women’s presidential aspirations, one that is obscured by the rhetoric of postfeminism. When female candidates characterize themselves as pioneers or are framed as such by the media, two notions of the metaphor can be at play. A pioneer is someone who is first to do something, paving the way for those who follow. The assumption is that although “pioneering” individuals face hardship as they pursue a new goal, their efforts make the way easier for those who follow. Additionally, in the realm of electoral politics, the pioneer metaphor often invokes a distinctively western mythos that connotes frontier spirit, rugged individualism, and heroic masculinity. More specifically, this chapter contends that the pioneer frame, which has been applied to each woman candidate for the US presidency since the nineteenth century, undermines the credibility of women candidates, underscoring the transgressive and oxymoronic quality of all woman presidential candidates. Although political women have benefited from the efforts of their predecessors, the pioneer metaphor obscures women’s progress in the political sphere...