The New York Review of Books recently ran an article that dug deep into Joe Biden, the candidate and the persona. I was excited to see the March 12 issue contains an article on Elizabeth Warren by Caroline Fraser, the Pulitzer prize winning author of a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Unfortunately, in my view the article was an unworthy hot take on the senator. The thesis seems to be that Senator Warren has tried too hard in her campaign to be liked at the expense of responding substantively to the sexism faced by female candidates. I’m not sure what “responding substantively” would look like and not sure extensive bemoaning of the obstacles women face in running for office – no matter how real – is a great campaign strategy. For my money, the best thing a woman candidate can do for women is advocate policies that help women. But I don’t view Senator Warren as a candidate who is foremost desperate to be liked, either. A candidate desperate for America to like her doesn’t skewer our (supposedly) affable Chief Justice in front of Congress. That was an ovary-y move on her part, one that could have easily backfired politically. My guess is she did it because she thought Roberts should be called out for his part in a sham trial. I.e., it was an expression of her authentic beliefs.
I have heard similar criticism that Warren is “too nice” to run for president and I always have to wonder if these critics are watching the same campaign I am. I find Warren’s willingness to own her anger genuine and damn courageous. Showing anger is risky for women candidates but she hasn’t shied away from it. And as far as Ms. Fraser’s suggestion that Warren “plays into yet another form of bias, the perception that women aren’t funny,” well, that’s just crap. I find Warren funny as hell and I don’t know that any other candidate has deployed humor as effectively. See, e.g., her “Go Cougars” quip and her quip at the LGTB debate.
Here’s the letter to the editor I sent to the NY Review:
After reading, and rereading, Caroline Fraser’s Warren in the Trap, I’m still trying to figure out Ms. Fraser’s criticism of Senator Warren’s presidential candidacy. Her gripes include Ms. Warren’s upbeat mannerisms – which Ms. Fraser somehow knows to be the product of “long fought constraints” – the “twang” in her voice when she refers to her father as “my daddy,” and, by Ms. Fraser’s telling, failed attempts at humor. According to Ms. Fraser, these traits evince a candidate who is trying too hard to be liked, when she should be tackling the topic of sexism “in a substantive way.” The suggestion, ironically, is that there is something “inauthentic” about Senator Warren’s persona, a concept that like electability and likability is wielded disproportionately against women candidates. In other words, in critiquing the Ms. Warren’s public persona, Ms. Fraser seems to have fallen into her own gender bias trap.
In fairness to Ms. Fraser, she wrote her article before the Las Vegas debate, in which Ms. Warren verbally disemboweled an unrepentant sexist billionaire, while decrying the tactics used against women in the workplace. But for anyone who has been paying attention to the senator’s candidacy, the Las Vegas debate was just the most pure distillation of Warren’s public persona: unapologetically pissed off at a rigged economy, funny, and out for justice, including, especially, justice for women. I don’t know what more Ms. Fraser wants from a woman candidate for president. Maybe she doesn’t like the senator’s voice.
I’ve been lurking and wanted to diary this article on the candidate I will be supporting in the primary, g*d willing, Elizabeth Warren.
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