Cultural Dynamics in a Globalized World – Budianta et al. (Eds) © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-62664-5

Contesting representations in the gendered space of politics: ’s representations in , , and

D. Hapsarani & M. Budianta Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, West Java, Indonesia

ABSTRACT: The aim of this research is to show the contesting representations of Hillary Clinton in her autobiography Living History (2003) and two biographies (2007): A Woman in Charge by Carl Bernstein and Her Way by and Don van Natta. The results of the analysis on Living History reveals that Hillary negotiates with the gendered writing conven- tion of political autobiography and the double binds traps in building her image as a credible and capable world leader. Meanwhile, the study on the two biographies brings to light the consistent strategies to frame Hillary with gender stereotypes, double binds, as well as a nega- tive and disturbing personality.

1 INTRODUCTION

The fact that political elections in the United States are deeply gendered has sparked a great deal of research on women studies to figure out the reasons why it is so difficult to convince the American people to vote for a woman’s leadership. Falk (2010) confirms her assumption that the way media treated women candidates has not changed after a thorough study on the nine presidential campaigns involving women candidates in the United States from 1872 up to 2008. Waylen, et al. (2013) put politics both as practices and a study within a wider social context in which gender plays a very determining role, and they are convinced that in order to change the current, political science it should start to embrace gender perspective in their study. With all this mushrooming research on gender and politics at the background, gender, once again, became a hot button issue in the 2016 political election as Hillary Clinton man- aged to win the presidential nomination from the Democratic Party. Josh Marshall (2016), a respected political journalist and blogger, dubbed the election as “the ultimate gendered elec- tion,” while Bartash (2016) from The Market Watch predicted that the election will lead to “the biggest battle of the sexes in American political history” since Hillary has to face Trump, the embodiment of extreme masculinity. It is not surprising that Hillary is still experiencing offensive onslaught as in the 2008 election. Offensive onslaught and negative representations are not new for Hillary who has started to become the target of attack ever since she assumed an active role in the administration of her husband’s presidency back in 1993–2001. The following pictures display some nega- tive stereotypes that are consistently and continuously attached to Hillary in the virtual media in 2008 and 2016. Hillary has been portrayed as the embodiment of a threat to the society.

345 Figure 1. Negative stereotypes of Hillary Clinton found in 2008 and in 2016.

With negative representations in the media and strong association between presidency and masculinity, Hillary is compelled to manoeuvre in this gendered space in representing herself as a woman candidate for president. Following the campaign tradition, Hillary chose to construct her self-representation by writing an autobiography, Living History, years before her candidacy. Writing a political or campaign autobiography is problematic in itself as the writing convention of the genre brings forth masculine characteristics. Long (1999) identi- fies four elements of masculinity in the writing convention of autobiography: a linear plot which emphasizes success, a call or destiny in the public domain, a solitary hero displaying independence and self reliance, and avoiding emotional exploration by repressing the emo- tional experiences. These elements reflect the gendered space of politics and political elec- tions which is dominated by masculinity and masculine stereotyping references. Therefore, it is interesting to see how Hillary makes use of references available in the gendered society to convince the readers of her capabilities and leadership. Another interesting phenomenon was the publication of two unauthorized biographies on Hillary in 2007, six months prior to the election. A Woman in Charge was written by Carl Bernstein, a Washington Post veteran journalist famous for his investigative report (with Bob Woodward) on the Watergate scandal resulting in the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton was written by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, two Pulitzer-Prize winning journalists from New York Times. Considering the background of the writers and the publication of the biographies, it can be assumed that the purpose of their publication was to challenge Hillary’s self-representations in her autobiography. Both books relied and also commented on Hillary’s story in Living History. This paper aims to show the contesting representations of Hillary Clinton and the barricades that a woman presidential candidate has to break through to gain the voters’ confidence. The strategy of representations in the three life narratives will be examined by investigating the framing used in telling Hillary’s life story. Framing is “selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution” (Entman, 2004, p. 5). The practice of framing commonly used in media studies is applicable in studying life narratives. Life itself has no structure and no meaning. It is the writer who selects and highlights a particular aspect of the subject’s life in order to unify the unrelated incidents and to interpret life experiences to make them meaningful and to give a sense of purpose. Framing can be identified by examining key words, metaphors, myths, concepts, symbols, visuals, ideas, and actions that are consistently and repeatedly used within the text.

346 This study uses a feminist framework to investigate Hillary’s strategies in navigating her life story through the maze of gender stereotypes, gender bias, double binds, and double standards to build her leadership image. At the same time, by analyzing the two biographies, the study examines the strategies of the three biographers in re-establishing the conventional gender stereotypes and gender bias and in reinforcing the use of double binds and double standards in telling their story about Hillary.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Research on gender and politics has been growing abundantly in the U.S., as researchers and scholars attempt to discover the barriers that prevent women from winning the presidential election. The results of these studies indicated a progress. The earlier research confirmed the negative effects of gender stereotypes on women candidates (Huddy and Terkildsen, 1993; Kahn & Goldenberg, 1991), while the latest research found evidence showing that gender stereotypes do not negatively affect the electability of women candidates, for there is a com- plex interaction involving several elements, among others the gender of the candidate, the can- didate’s party affiliation, the gender of the voters, and the gendered perception of the political party in nominating their candidates (Sullivan, 2007; Shaver, 2013; Dolan, 2013; Bauer, 2014; Hayes and Lawless, 2015). Also large in number is the research on gender stereotypes in the media aiming to reveal the extent of media bias against women candidates. Kahn’s analysis of newspaper coverage of senatorial and gubernatorial candidates in the 1980s (Kahn, 1991) shows gender bias in the media, as women candidates received less coverage and more nega- tive coverage than their male counterparts. Though women candidates nowadays receive more coverage than before, they are still defined by the media through their gender. A great deal of research focuses on Hillary’s strategy in dealing with these barriers. In eval- uating Hillary’s failure in the presidential election of 2008, Lawrence and Rose (2010) iden- tify three interlocking variables to analyse female presidential candidates: gender stereotypes, media routine, and candidate and her context. By evaluating Hillary’s campaign strategy in navigating her path around and through the use of gender stereotypes, Lawrence and Rose draw conclusions on factors to consider for future woman presidential candidate in devel- oping her campaign strategy. This research covers an extensive range of campaign media from campaign speeches, website, advertisement, to media coverage (blogs, newspapers, and television stations). However, the research does not cover Hillary’s preliminary campaign strategy using memoir or autobiography. Kaufner and Perry-Giles (2007), seeing a political memoir as a campaign medium to build arguments for future office, analyse the contrasting narrative style in Living History and and identify Hillary’s assumed political identities to position herself as a political leader. One interesting phenomenon with Hillary’s candidacy that has been overlooked by the previous research is the contestation of represen- tations within the genres of life narratives. This paper will focus on the contestation between Hillary’s self-representation and other representations that challenges her representations.

2.1 Hillary’s representation in Living History Hillary’s autobiography, Living History, shows that Hillary gives careful thoughts on how to present herself as a credible and capable world leader. In her strategy to evade the traps of gender stereotypes, gender bias, double standard, and double bind, she uses the strong points of both gender traits. She adopts some masculine traits to construct her representation as a competent political leader, while at the same time she also tries to balance the masculine qualities with selected feminine traits to soften her image without disrupting her leadership image. To position herself as a qualified political leader, she uses frames that are her success as the embodiment of the national ethos, the self-made man, and thus positions herself as a true American. Her claim that she is equal to other male political leaders in the American Dream

347 can also be read as her statement on the myth that has hitherto rejected women from attain- ing the highest leadership position in the country. The patriotism frame is more complicated for women, as heroic acts are perceived as mas- culine performance. Unfortunately for Hillary, patriotism has taken a centre stage in presiden- tial campaigns since 1988 and has become more salient after 9/11 and the ensuing war against terrorism. Hillary uses patriotism to frame her life during the Vietnam War period to justify her opposing standpoint as an act of nationalistic posture. The frame allows her to affirm the possibility of a woman who has no war experience to denote her patriotism by treating wars as a discourse into which a woman can enter. A similar frame is used in addressing the most controversial and embarrassing case, the Monica Lewinsky affair. Although Hillary shares her private feelings toward the scandal, she justifies her decision to stick to her marriage by framing it with her sense of patriotism and responsibility of a citizen to protect her country. To strengthen her position as a strong political leader, Hillary consistently contrasts her- self to women with traditional gender roles and builds an image that she is a non-conven- tional and progressive woman qualified to become a world leader and that she is the symbol of social change itself. Nevertheless, despite her efforts to put herself at the same level as male political leaders, she retains some feminine attributes to soften the masculine image. For example, she highlights the positive warm and congenial image of her staff, the Hillaryland which consists mainly of women and contrasts it with ’s competitive and indi- vidualistic presidential staff in the White House. This is an important strategy considering the operation of the double binds against women in politics. If she appears too masculine, she will be doomed as a threatening woman, whereas if she appears too feminine, she will be perceived as weak and thus she will lose her leadership credibility.

2.2 Representation of Hillary Clinton in A Woman in Charge and Her Way The study on the two biographies shows that both books use negative frames in telling Hillary’s story. Hillary is represented as ambitious, manipulative, compromising, dishonest, and dominating. These negative representations challenge Hillary’s self-representation in Living History by undermining her credibility and integrity as a trustworthy leader. Along with the negative qualities, the writers impart gender stereotypes and emphasize Hillary’s dominant masculinity as she is portrayed as a dominating and aggressive woman. However, although both books convey negative representations, they employ different framing strategies. Bernstein uses the frames of evolution, hypermasculine leadership, and narcissistic personality disorder, while Gerth and Van Natta use the frames of double stand- ard, image making, and negative personality. With the frame of evolution, Bernstein por- trays Hillary that looks positive on the outside as she is perceived of having the capability to change from a transitional woman (a progressive woman who is still trapped within the conventional values) into an independent female politician who has the courage to disconnect her leadership from her husband’s leadership. However, behind the seemingly positive image, Bernstein reveals that Hillary’s evolution is not the result of her hard work and independence, but the fruit of her manipulative strategy and compromise in presenting herself as a faithful traditional wife to draw people’s sympathy and thus gaining her popularity. This represen- tation challenges Hillary’s self-representation as Berstein insists that Hillary’s senatorship is an ascribed status, not an achieved status as portrayed by Hillary through the myth of the American Dream. Bernstein also relates the frame of Hillary’s evolution with her moral degradation and lack of integrity as he emphasizes more on how Hillary compromises her idealism and moral values to attain her political standing. Although Bernstein uses masculine traits as a frame to highlight Hillary’s personality, his choice of masculine traits are different from the ones used by Hillary. While Hillary uses the positive traits of masculinity to strengthen her leadership capability, Bernstein challenges her self-representation by applying hypermasculinity traits as his frame. She is not only por- trayed as an unruly woman, but also as an insatiable monster who is craving for power. Another frame used by Bernstein is the frame of narcissistic behaviour indicated by an inflated self-esteem, a sense of self-entitlement due to self aggrandizement, lack of 348 empathy toward others, and difficulties to accept failure. To build the foundation of this frame, Bernstein uses a different perception in telling Hillary’s childhood, specifically in rela- tion to her father. By claiming that Hillary has fabricated her childhood story to conceal the truth, Bernstein contests, denies, and invalidates Hillary’s version of story and questions, the authenticity of Hillary’s self-representation, as well as her integrity. Based on this decon- struction, Bernstein builds up his frame of narcissism to operate “the madwoman in the attic” metaphor. Thus, Hillary is claimed to be not only unreliable but also mentally unfit to become the president. Gerth and Van Natta use a different set of frames in their biography. They operate frames that highlight the double-standard, image making, and negative personality starting from the prologue. The double-standard frame is set up by their statement that “[f]or years, Hillary has known that the standard for the first female president would be far higher than that for a man. A woman president would have to be super strong” (Gerth and Van Natta, 2007 p. 8). This statement of double standard is normalized with the quotation from Char- lotte Whitton, a Canadian politician (1963) which states that “[w]hatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult” (Gerth and Van Natta, 2007 p. 340). The last sentence strengthens the normalization of the double standard by confirming that although it might not seem fair, the double standard is still achievable for women. Gerth and Van Natta also include ’s answer in an interview on the possibility of a woman to become a president. She mentioned the condi- tions a woman should have if she wants to be a president: her capacity and the people’s trust in her integrity and ability. These criteria are used as the measuring rod to evaluate Hillary and in the end justify their claim that Hillary has neither the capability nor the integrity and ability. To convince the readers that Hillary does not meet the criteria set by Eleanor, Hillary’s role model, the writers operate the frame of image making and negative characters. The image making frame sets Hillary as any ordinary politician who brushes up her image to conceal the reality. To stretch it even further, Gerth and Van Natta represent Hillary as a politician who does not know her true identity since she has been used to apply different types of personas for different situations. Overall, Hillary is portrayed as an ambitious, dishonest, compromis- ing, and manipulative politician who is driven with the desire to dominate. Although the two biographies, A Woman in Charge and Her Way, employ different frames, both of them construct counter representations to subvert Hillary’s self-repre- sentation in Living History. Both biographies essentially confirm and support the neg- ative representations about Hillary in the media which can be classified as a symbolic annihilation. The research shows that gender inequality has placed Hillary in a less fortunate position as the result of the complexity of the negotiations a woman should comply in constructing her own political persona. Autobiography as one of the most effective media for political campaign due to its ability to manipulate and influence the audience becomes problematic when used by women presidential candidates. Although, in an autobiography, the writer has the authority to construct the narration of her own life and experiences without any media- tion, in reality the writer is bound to the convention of autobiography dominated by myths, values, stereotypes, and characteristics associated with masculinity. Consequently, position- ing becomes not only very important but also complex for women candidates in writing their autobiography. They have to negotiate the convention of autobiographical writing and gender stereotypes to avoid the trappings of the double binds. This complexity of gender positioning is a form of suppression toward women that curbs them from entering politics since they have to face greater, more complicated, and intimidating situations than male can- didates. Despite the fact that people expect women candidates to have masculine characteris- tics, they are also expected to keep their femininity. If they appear too masculine, they will be perceived as cold and threatening, while on the other hand, the traits of femininity pose a risk to their leadership. In addition, if they choose to negotiate between masculine and feminine traits, they will be judged as inconsistent, image making, and compromising (see Figure 2). Whatever their choice is, the result is always negative. 349 Figure 2. The double binds traps.

The adversity continues on. Once a female presidential candidate constructed her political persona, it will then be scrutinized by the readers, which include the media. As indicated by the two biographies on Hillary Clinton, reinterpretation that produces counter-representations might occur in the form of a number of contesting representations. The practices of repression is operated in doing the reinterpretation through the use of particular frames, such as gender stereotypes (hypermasculinity, “the mad woman in the attic” metaphor, the unruly woman), double standards (by using prominent women figures as the justification), negative personality, and image making. All of the frames are used for the same goal, which is to paralyze the character of the subject which can be classified as a form of symbolic annihilation (Gerbner & Gross, 1976). Considering that the representations in the two biographies are not far too different from the ones circulating in the media prior and during the writing of the biographies, there are two possible conclusions to draw. First, the biographies’ adoption of the frames that have been constantly used by the media indicates the powerful influence of the prevailing frames used to undermine women presidential candidates. Second, given that the three biographers are political journalists, there is a possibility that they are part of the institution that builds the news framing Hillary in the media. In that case, these political biographies are campaign tools used to voice the resistance or rejection toward women presidential candidates.

3 CONCLUSION

Based on the narrative strategies used in the three life narratives, gender still dominates poli- tics in America as well as the narration convention of life writing. The concepts of gender roles, gender stereotypes, double standard, and double binds are being intensified in the writ- ing of the political biographies of Hillary Clinton. Lastly, the analysis reveals how gender asymmetry operates in the writing of campaign auto/biography of women presidential candidates. The gendered narration convention in autobiographical writing intensifies the complexity of positioning for women candidates. Since women presidential candidates are still an anomaly and due to the domination of mas- culinity in politics and campaign autobiography, the existing concepts and mental repre- sentations within the convention have not included women candidates. As a result, women candidates have to negotiate with the masculine concepts or mental representations while calculating other consequences that might arise due to the implementation of double stand- ards and double binds. The writing of campaign biographies with women candidates as the subject contesting the self-representation constructed in the autobiography of the subject

350 amplifies the challenges and complexity of the situation. It is undeniable that the complex- ity faced by Hillary Clinton cannot be separated from her liabilities; however, apart from Hillary’s political baggage, the consistent use of gender stereotypes, double standards, and double binds as the strategy to resist Hillary’s candidacy as president shows that politics is still a gendered space. The results of this research affirm the research on the consequences of gender stereotypes conducted prior to the U.S. election of 2008. This research proves that gender stereotypes, double standards, and double binds are still believed to be a powerful and influential strategy to shape the way voters evaluate women presidential candidates. This research offers new possibilities to see the dynamics of the gender issue in politics through the formation and the contestation of representations in campaign auto/biographies. Since the gender issue does not only affect female presidential candidates, but also male candidates, gendered perspective research can also be applied to autobiographies written by male presidential candidates. Are male candidates free from the gender issue or do they also have to play with gender stereo- types in representing themselves?

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