Vice President Kamala Harris has been facing backlash for going on one of Spotify’s most popular podcasts, Call Her Daddy. The podcast has faced controversy in the past for being “misogynistic” and “anti-feminist.” Call Her Daddy, starring host Alex Cooper, discusses intimacy, mental health, and relationships — all topics focused on women, their rights, and what they choose to do with their lives. The main audience of this podcast is young women, whom Cooper calls the “Daddy Gang.”
Let’s lay out the facts:
Alex Cooper prefaced this episode of her podcast by talking about how she invited both former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss their thoughts on women’s rights, specifically reproductive rights. Only one of them accepted this invitation. The Vice President of the United States was invited onto the podcast to broadcast her opinions on women’s rights and reproductive rights, not to discuss her political opinions nor to urge viewers to vote for her in the upcoming presidential election.
Harris stressed the importance of voting, she didn’t insist that viewers vote for her, she just wanted them to get out and vote. Going into this election, it’s obvious that Harris has a very clear demographic that she’s targeting — Gen Z, specifically young women. We see this with Kamala HQ’s witty TikToks which are quite entertaining, (I’m not going to lie) but very obviously meant for a certain audience, quite like Daddy Gang.
“I decided at a young age I wanted to do the act of protecting vulnerable people”
Harris thanks Cooper for talking about sexual assault so openly in today’s society. As an individual who had to see her best friend go through being assaulted, Harris explains how this pushed her to become an advocate for women’s rights. Harris acknowledges that Cooper, through her podcast, brings more awareness and appreciation to the issue.
“That was my mother”
One topic Harris touched on that resonated with me and other listeners was her love for her step-children and the impact her relationship with her mother had on shaping the woman she is today. She spoke about her mother’s battle with cancer, an aspect of her life that many people were likely unaware of. She then connected this back to how this inspired her to work harder and be a more confident woman. This was undoubtedly a refreshing experience for Harris and the audience, as she is typically seen as a political figure being repeatedly grilled about the elections and her political standing in interviews. This humanized Kamala, making her seem more than just another presidential candidate. She was seen as a daughter and a mother, a perspective that’s rare in her typical political interviews.
Cooper’s main goal with her podcast is to tell these women to go out and live their lives, to do what they want to without fear of being judged by society. The Vice President has been reinforcing this exact idea throughout her campaign. She tells these young women to go out and live their lives, to be confident without fear of being judged.
The bottom line
Through her appearance on Call Her Daddy, Harris was able to go on a unique platform to speak to a specific demographic about her values and upbringing and how that influenced her values and political standing today. As a young woman who is choosing to vote in this year’s election, I think Kamala Harris knew exactly what she was doing, and she did it damn well.