Gender and the 2016 Election

While reading the article on "Donald Trump, Locker Rooms and Toxic Masculinity" by Jill Soloway it was crystal clear what her argument was when it comes to gender. She points out that once two more men are together there becomes a competition over masculinity. Men discuss, rate, and degrade women who they don't know. As long as she isn't related she is up for grabs for the topic of discussion with men in this so called "locker room talk". What I liked about what she had to say was when she was describing the differences between the possible talk that women have in their locker room and the apparent conversations men are having. She points out that women will use the locker room as the way it should be, to get ready for your next adventure in your day and to talk a work out class you may have just taken and so forth, while men are apparently discussing women for their pleasure. While reading this article it reminded me the article "Other People's Children" by Lisa Delpit. Her article was about position of power, who has power, how do you get power, and how do you even know if you have any power. She also talks about how white educated males are usually in the position of power just based on the credentials of being a white male. Soloway talks about the position of power in her article based on gender, and her article says that: "White cis able-bodied educated males from theruling class are at the top, holding nearly all of the power of the planet. Youget access to this power if you’re married or related to one of these men. Asyou head down the pyramid, by daring to be perhaps — an unrelated white womanwithout a ring or poise, or gosh, a black woman, or a queer person or a transperson or a disabled person, your fall speeds up exponentially". This quote shows how there is a pyramid of power in Soloways article that relates to the same idea Delpit has on the position of power having white, educated, males leaders.

The second article was called “Hilary Clinton Raises Her Voice, and a Debate Over Speech and Sexism Rage” by Amy Chozick. In this article she argues about what people think about Hilary Clinton’s voice when she speaks. People have been arguing that it seems like Clinton is always shouting/yelling when she is campaigning. In Chozick’s article there is a comment by a woman named Ruth Sherman who states: “the tendency to yell on a campaignstump is not gender specific, but the public is much less accustomed to hearinga woman’s voice in such setting”. This to me sounds like the public is criticizing Hilary Clinton’s voice just because they aren’t used to hearing the tone of a female’s voice in a public speaking manner. I don’t understand why people would care so much about her voice sounds if she is excited about something and her voice automatically gets louder. Really it all comes down to be that she is female who is now in a certain position of power, and women haven’t had this chance yet. This article reminded me of the article “Privilege, Power, and Difference” by Allan G. Johnson.  In his article he talks about privilege and how most of the people who are privileged don’t even know that they are. Chozick’s article reminded me of Johnson’s article because in this case the men who run for president, such as Donald Trump, don’t even realize how privileged he is just because he is a man and has the tone of voice that the public is used to, while Hilary Clinton isn’t privileged enough because she is a woman. So now Clinton gets to have articles on how “annoying” her voice is or how she yells when she campaigns.

Class Discussion:

These two articles have definitely brought out the topic of gender through this campaign. Between the comments made about females in the locker room talk that goes on and the fact that people can dislike someone’s campaign based on the fact they don’t like their voice. And the cause of them not liking her voice is because aren’t used to female voices in this step of power. We hear female voices every day, so why is it in this particular setting people now not used to hearing this tone of voice?