Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns, and: W Stands for Women: How the George W. Bush Presidency Shaped a New Politics of Gender (review)

Gender and performances of gender have become increasingly part of how both academics and the general public understand politics. How gender is used to structure opportunities and roles for men and women, along with domestic and foreign policies of the United States, is the unifying question explored by the two books discussed in this review. In Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns, Erika Falk—starting in 1873, before women achieved universal suffrage in the United States and proceeding to 2004, in the twenty-first century—analyzes eight women candidates and the media coverage surrounding their bids for the presidency, focusing on media bias towards women candidates. In W Stands for Women: How the George W. Bush Presidency Shaped a New Politics of Gender, editors Michaele L. Ferguson and Lori Jo Marso assembled a collection of essays that critically examine the political and gender ideologies used by George W. Bush's administration.

Numerous women have sought the presidency of the United States with varying degrees of success. Falk focuses on eight noteworthy cases: Victoria Woodhall (1872, Equal Rights Party), Belva Bennett Lockwood (1884, Equal Rights Party), Margaret Chase Smith (1964, Republican Party), Shirley Chisholm (1972, Democratic Party), Patricia Schroeder (1988, Democratic Party), Lenora Fulani (1988, New Alliance Party), Elizabeth Dole (2000, Republican Party), and Carol Mosely Braun (2004, Democratic Party). Despite the considerable changes in the social and political rights of women over the past 132 years, Falk's findings suggest that not much has changed in the media's coverage of women candidates. Specifically, she finds considerable evidence that both sexism and gender stereotypes have shaped the media's coverage of women candidates in the past as well as the present.

Employing a qualitative approach to assess the level of bias, Falk compares the eight women candidates with the male candidate equivalent in each of presidential races in terms of career, experience, political party, and place in polls. She compares James Black and Victoria Woodhull, Benjamin Butler and Belva Bennett Lockwood, Nelson Rockefeller and Margaret Chase Smith, Henry Jackson and Shirley Chisholm, Richard Gephardt and Patricia Schroeder, Ron Paul and Lenora Fulani, Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Dole, and Bob Graham and Carol Mosely Braun. The data for the study come from the coverage of each candidate in the New York Times and the largest circulating newspaper in the candidate's home state, from the day the first candidate entered the race to the day the last candidate left the race or the election. These comparisons allow Falk to control for a variety of factors that may explain differences in press coverage; thus illuminating differences between women and men candidates that emerged based on gendered considerations.

Falk draws on cultivation theory, arguing that the power of the press comes from its ability to shape our thoughts about the basic assumptions of society. Thus, bias in the media may create an extra barrier for women seeking the presidency. Falk contends that bias in the media not only makes it harder for women to win but also has a wider impact in that it may discourage women from seeking elective office in the first place.

The media coverage for the 2008 Democratic Primary, which included the most successful and high profile campaign for the presidency by a woman candidate to date, Hillary Rodham Clinton, triggered many questions among feminists and critically conscious citizens about the treatment of female candidates in the media: Why does everyone call her "Hillary," but call her challenger "Senator Obama"? Who cares about the color of her pants suit? Why does Senator Clinton receive questions about balancing the campaign and mothering when...