Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race this past weekend. I don’t think anyone is shocked. If you were following the news, there were inside reporters that he was considering dropping out, along with the push from pretty much every senator for him to drop out, this was inevitable.
What’s also not surprising is that Vice President Kamala Harris is getting the push to be the nominee to replace Biden. It’s pretty self-explanatory for the current VP to take over. She’s the closest person to being the President right now anyway. Even the attacks on her character were expected in today’s political landscape.
And despite the fact that this was expected, I am still horrified by the sheer amount of racist and misogynistic attacks that she is being subjected to. Some of these attacks are hidden under “it’s just criticism!” whereas other attacks are just openly disgusting attacks on Harris’s identity. Now, she isn’t immune to criticism. I have my thoughts about some of her policies, but we’ll get into the difference in a moment.
Most of my internship is centered on X, so during my usual daily scroll the other day, I came across an AI image that made me physically ill. To explain it without being too graphic, it was a downward angle of Harris performing oral sex on an unnamed man. And it had nearly 500 likes and no sign of being taken down.
This AI image is a response to the story that many are pushing about Harris, that she only worked her way up the political ladder because she slept with high-profile men. There isn’t anything that would make this story true, besides the fact that Harris dated former San Francisco Governor Willie Brown before she became Attorney General. It seems like people are taking this story and using it as an excuse to push the idea that the only way women can obtain positions of power is if they sleep with a high-power man.
Why is it that we are so obsessed with women’s relationships and sexual lives, but when it comes to men’s, we either brush it under the rug or it’s normalized as “something boys do.” We love to talk about women using sex to gain power but we never seem to talk about the men who withhold power so that they can have access to sex.
Let’s go back to Donald Trump’s hush money trial in which, while he was married, paid hush money to pornstar Stormy Daniels to remain quiet about their sexual encounter. Several media outlets instantly tried to destroy Daniels’s credibility as a witness in order to defend Trump, even though Trump was clearly in a higher position of power than Daniels.
People will do anything they can to degrade a woman in order to lift up a man who abuses his power and hurts. A majority of the attacks I’m seeing against Harris are from her gender, race, and past relationships. Almost immediately after Biden endorsed Kamala, “Kameltoe,” started trending on X. Yup. And Sean Hannity did a whole segment on how he doesn’t like her laugh.
Considering that her opposers have to immediately jump to attack her personal life speaks volumes regarding the treatment of women in positions of power. It also speaks to how her critics don’t know what to criticize her on. I was always told growing up that bullies and mean people will jump to attacks on character if they have nothing better and constructive today. It’s just a reminder that many bullies work in the government.
I think if you want to criticize a politician, you should. Actually, I think we need to be much better about criticizing politicians. In 2016, the rhetoric around politicians was that they had a sort of godly status, and if anyone in their party didn’t agree with them, they would be shunned. I’m sure we’ve all seen clips of Trump’s supporters wearing ear bandages at the RNC in a similar way that people wear crosses to honor God.
If you’re going to criticize Kamala Harris, criticize her continued funding of the genocide in Gaza. Or criticize how early in her career she targeted low-income marginalized families for minor drug charges. No politician is a savior who we have to bow down to. But I think we also need to learn how to not jump to racism and misogyny when something happens that we don’t like. There is a clear line between the two.