So Kamala is the ‘childless cat lady’? White male power plays its hateful gender card

The higher women climb, the thinner the air, the starker the double standard becomes. As Kamala Harris’s mother likes to say, none of us have fallen from coconut trees – we all exist in a context, in terms of what surrounds us, and what came before us. Harris has not fallen from a tree to suddenly find herself running for president.

For three decades, she worked as a prosecutor and attorney-general, then a senator. She has spent the past four years as vice president, doing a job that no woman or black person had done before – and is now running for another position that has been the preserve of men – and almost exclusively white men, for centuries.

Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns this week. Credit: AP/Kayla Wolf

This is the context into which Harris now walks. These are the standards, the images, the ways by which she will be judged – the rows of white men.

Her opponent, Donald Trump, is a businessman and reality TV star whose third wife is increasingly absent from his rallies and events. Who is a convicted felon, who has been found in a civil case to have raped – or sexually abused – a woman. Who has committed fraud and allegedly slept with a porn star – without a condom – when his wife was pregnant. Who has insulted people with disabilities, women and veterans, yet has galvanised and electrified millions.

So what have we heard? Which objections have been raised to Harris’ candidacy in the past few days? She laughs too much. She is “too hot”. She was “crowned” by Biden. She is a woman. She is black. She is a black woman.

It didn’t take long for sexist, slutty slurs to snake then swarm through social media channels. Analysis by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) found that over last weekend, hateful, violent remarks directed at Harris soared – on Truth Social (by 33 per cent), Telegram (50 per cent), Gab (292 per cent) and 4chan (525 per cent).

It should not need to be said that Kamala Harris should be judged by her merits, her record, her competence, her vision of America and her ability to articulate it, to inspire, or restore, trust and confidence – not by her private parts. But history shows this to be an inevitability, as well as a distraction. Fellow Australians, we know this too well.

So, let’s consider what we might learn from the major tropes that have quickly re-emerged:

First, the only proper kind of woman, therefore the only proper kind of powerful woman, is one who has also given birth. Kamala has not, and therefore, although she is a stepmother, is weirdly considered childless.

Trump-endorsed Republican Blake Masters stated: “Political leaders should have children ... If you aren’t running or can’t run a household of your own, how can you relate to a constituency of families, or govern wisely with respect to future generations? Skin in the game matters.”

Conservative lawyer Will Chamberlain said much the same thing. Could you argue, then, that you shouldn’t make decisions about abortion unless you’ve given birth yourself? And what do statements like Masters’ mean for those who have adopted or fostered children, who have step kids, or infertility problems? What of those who just don’t want children? Why assume only parents have empathy and a “stake” in the country? What of the likes of George Washington, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, James Polk and James Buchanan, all American presidents who had no children?

What century is this?

In a conversation with Tucker Carlson in 2021, Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance listed Harris as a part of a childless Democrat coterie, saying: “We’re effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” Cat ladies? These statements are so retro. Why dismiss Harris’ partner and step-children, especially given Trump’s mottled marital record?

Second, women only ever succeed because they are women, even though the legion men in power would attest the opposite is true. A host of Republicans responded to the news of Harris’ candidacy by calling her a “DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire”. When she was made VP, Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett claimed Biden picked her because she ticked boxes, not because she was qualified: “Biden said he’s going to hire a Black female for vice president … what about white females? What about any other group? When you go down that route, you take mediocrity, and that’s what they have right now as a vice president.”

When Trump selects a white man as running mate, like so many white men before him, does he get accused of greenlighting mediocrity?

Third, women sleep their way to power. Expect to see ongoing suggestions that Harris, is, bluntly, a slut with a “sordid sexual history”. As someone asked on 4Chan, “how many dicks did she ride to get where she is?” This archaic idea stems from a brief relationship Harris had in the 1990s with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, when she was 29 and a prosecutor. It lasted about a year. During that time, Brown appointed her to two boards, on medical assistance and unemployment insurance appeals. Entirely separately, the San Francisco district attorney recruited her, then she ran against him and won. Then she ran for the Senate and won. Decades ago.

Underlying all of this is the idea that Harris is an interloper, an intruder in a male world, something unnatural. These old tropes repeatedly reveal a refusal to accept women legitimately earn positions of power, that they deserve them and earn them.

Look for example at this tweet, from right winger Matt Walsh: “Kamala Harris got her start in politics by sleeping with Willie Brown. She became Vice President because Biden needed a non-white female on the ticket. Now she likely becomes the Democratic nominee for president because the guy at the top of the ticket has dementia. She’s made a career out of begging for handouts from powerful men. A thoroughly unimpressive human being.”

What about the handouts from powerful men that other men get – like J.D. Vance, whose political career has been entirely supported by pro-Trump tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who employed him, funded his Senate campaign and introduced him to other backers? Haven’t seen any tweets implying Vance couldn’t make it on his own, or that Thiel favoured Vance because he prefers white men in power.

What about all the other many dozens of people Brown appointed to boards, like, say, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California?

Men lobby, connect, make smart power players; women seduce, exploit and play the “gender card” (as Trump said of Hillary Clinton).

These overtly sexist remarks are predictable and obvious. More subtle and pernicious is the idea that women seeking election have had to contend with ever since they were able to run for parliament or Congress: that their position is somehow illegitimate.

Still, expect these tropes to emerge repeatedly throughout the campaign. Watch how Harris is judged against a mythical perfect female candidate, not Trump. And watch also how these attacks grow darker and more severe as the hounds of misinformation, juiced on the steroids of misogyny and racism, are unleashed online in great number, clouding and confusing, dragging the debate away from the core question of who can best strengthen the economy, protect the climate, manage the border crisis, safeguard reproductive rights and restore unity to America.

Julia Baird is author of Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians.