Friends, this will likely come as a surprise, but we crunched the numbers and it appears as if some of our political choices are… influenced by gender. “Wait, what?” you’re no doubt saying, but yes, it’s true, and we’re on the case.
In this episode, your stalwart TWIB team tackles the dark arts of American electoral politics. Our question: What does it take for a candidate (of any gender) to be considered “authentic” and “relatable?” Also: why is it that even many of us who have purchased multiple Little Feminist books for our households still default to “tough talking dudes” when it comes time to punch our ballots? Plus: how do you get all the text messages to stop (just kidding, we didn’t discuss that; everybody knows that they’ll never stop, that long after this planet implodes you’ll still get a text saying “[INSERT NAME], WE’RE IN TROUBLE.”). But still, there’s lots of fun stuff here: we watch some ads, we yell at Gavin Newsom (of course) and Sarah does an admirable job of trying to steer the conversation towards 90s R & B.
Links:
The platonic ideal of a Midwestern rec room (link to Garrett’s Instagram— swipe to the second picture in the carousel).
When “authenticity” means “dudes” by Danielle Kurtzleben
Monica Macdermot and Dan Cassino’s Masculinity in American Politics
Nadia Brown and Danielle Casarez Lemi’s Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites
Patriarchal Bargains (Moira Donegan on Andrea Dworkin)
More:
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