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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Nottingham chapter.

A young Kamala Harris beams from the front-page of the Sunday Times Magazine (13 October 2024), looking every inch a future presidential candidate, maybe even the future president. But it is not this which grabs my attention. The subheading next to her, titled ‘How the wannabe president schmoozed her way to the top’ is what shocked me.

For a female journalist to choose ‘schmoozed’ as the reader’s first impression of the article, and therefore of Kamala as the subject, is puzzling to say the least. Simply googling connotations of the word brings up the fact that it has negative connotations, and that it is a ‘casual talk that is often gossipy or ingratiating.’ This verb puts Harris in a position of subordination, leaning into the misogynistic preconceptions of powerful women having got to where they are not through their own cleverness and canny networking skills, but through reliance on their looks, or flirting ability – their sexuality.

Of course, this is partly the fault of the reader, me included. The original meaning of ‘schmoozed’ is talking in an informal and warm manner, coming from the Yiddish ‘schmues,’ meaning ‘talk’. So it is through our own chauvinist culture that the verb has come to be more commonly associated with flirting in order to get ahead, and maybe we as readers should make a more conscious effort to not have these preconceptions. However, this is something to strive for, maybe something that could start to evolve if Harris does win the presidency. For now, though, we must be realistic. With the US elections nearly upon us, is ‘schmoozed’ really the wisest choice of words to put on the front cover of a national magazine about the potential first female president?

The article itself, written by Megan Agnew, is a great feat. It aims to bring to light Harris’ background, her time as the District Attorney for San Fransisco, and her connections with the socialites of the city, in order to understand her impressive rise to power. It is no surprise that Harris would have had to use all the networking skills she possessed to make the connections necessary to rise so far in politics; that is the nature of the job after all. But why not just characterise it as political networking, rather than using such a loaded word as ‘schmoozed’?

For women to get to where she is in politics, they must balance the ‘likability tightrope’ as a recent article in The Washington Post put it. This tightrope incorporates three challenges Harris must overcome in order to stay level with her male counterpart:

  • The resume bar – a female candidate must have already met her potential in order to prove herself worthy of the role, while for a male candidate it is enough just to have potential.
  • The motherhood bias – if a female candidate has children, voters will question how she can care for them and serve as president, something that does not even cross people’s minds for male candidates.
  • The ethical pedestal – female candidates are believed to be more honest and trustworthy than male candidates, but it is harder to climb back up if they are knocked off that pedestal.

These three challenges are enough to have to overcome on their own, without articles like this one (if unwittingly) contributing to them. Another recent parallel closer to home is the shocking comment made by Sir Christopher Cope, a veteran Conservative MP, against Kemi Badenoch, saying that he would not support her bid for party leadership because she is ‘preoccupied with her own children.’ He was widely condemned by members of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, with Liz Jarvis, the Liberal Democrat MP, tweeting that ‘diminishing women’s ability to play leading roles in public life because they have young families is an attitude that should be in the distant past.’ However much comments like these are protested against, they show that politics still has a long way to go for women to be seen as worthy enough to be leaders.

This is a time where the political landscape of the United States has become increasingly more divided, and rife with misogyny. Where Harris’ opponent not only the person responsible for appointing the Supreme Court Justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, but a convicted felon too. The threat to women’s rights harms everyone; especially young girls and boys who will grow up with this increased division between them. How can a democratic society function if half of its population’s rights are eroding in front of us?

This is why it is so vital that articles like this one do not contribute to the already alarming misogyny infiltrating deeper and deeper into western culture. Women as well as men need to check our own internalised misogyny, because democracy depends on it.

Agnes Tate

Nottingham '25

Agnes is a third year Classical Civilisations student at the University of Nottingham. Her main areas of interest are women's mental health, university life, books and cultural issues in affecting young people in the modern world. In her free time she can be found curled up with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate!