According to pollsters and political reporters, a dispiriting dynamic has taken hold of the early stages of the Democratic presidential primary: Voters are discounting female candidates as unelectable.
Emotionally, it makes sense. Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump left an enduring wound. Three years later, the memory feels like a warning that however much some may want it, this country is simply not ready to elect a woman as president.
But overlooking a qualified woman because you expect misogynists to have a problem with her is the very definition of patriarchy. It perpetuates the dynamic that has given us 45 male presidents.
This year, it’s the men whose electability you should doubt. Every man who’s running will somehow have to come up with a credible answer to this simple question: After everything we’ve learned about how gender bias has decimated female leadership in America, can you give us one reason for the next president to be yet another man?
I’ve spent a lot of time chatting with people in and out of politics about this question, and I really haven’t heard a good answer to it. And so I’ve come to harbor the opposite bias. It would be a terrible mistake for the Democrats to nominate a man as their standard-bearer against Trump, and it would be tragic for the United States to elect a man to the presidency in 2020 – not just Trump but any man.
This isn’t because all the men who are running are terrible. It’s because a man, even your favorite man, would be a lesser advocate than many of the women for some of the most important issues of the day. A male candidate would damage the best political arguments against Trump. And if he wins, his gender’s blindness to issues involving women might stunt urgent and necessary political action.
In the past few years, the political climate for female candidates has grown more favorable. In the spiraling revelations of #MeToo, much of the nation saw the pervasiveness of misogyny.
Now, much of the money, organization and energy on the left has been driven by a reawakened feminism. And not just on the left: According to Gallup, the “way women are treated in U.S. society” was among the most important issues to voters in 2018, above gun policy, taxes and wealth inequality.
When I think of Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders taking on Trump on women’s issues, I cringe. The picture of two old men shouting over each other about all they’ve done for women would be a devastating indictment of their advocacy.
You might say it’s sexist to question a male Democrat’s commitment to feminism, but surveys show men underestimate the frequency of sexual harassment of women. And women tend to deliver on policy goals that directly benefit women and families in society.
Electing a woman as president would deal a smashing symbolic blow to the patriarchy. How can even the most enlightened male candidate rebut that plain fact? In 100 years, what will stand as the more appropriate response to the upheaval of the Trump years and of #MeToo – electing the first woman or electing a very woke man?
Sorry, boys. The answer here is obvious.
Farhad Manjoo is a columnist for The New York Times.
