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NULab Faculty Meg Heckman on Kamala Harris and “Viability” Rhetoric

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On July 24, 2024, NULab faculty Meg Heckman published a commentary on wbur entitled: “‘Viability’ is a Dangerous Euphemism.” In it, Heckman points out the disparity in political journalism between the discussion around male and female presidential candidates; while men receive serious media attention, women tend to be reduced to their physical appearances, their domestic lives, or their “novelty.” Specifically, female candidates are surrounded by narratives of the “viability” of their campaigns, a term that Heckman argues is a thinly veiled code signaling that women are somehow less electable than men.

Heckman calls for a change in these journalistic traditions, urging journalists to replace questions about viability with candid acknowledgements about the racism and sexism facing Kamala Harris’ campaign. Heckman cites her own 2020 co-authored paper, “Powerful in pearls and Willie Brown’s mistress: a computational analysis of gendered news coverage of Kamala Harris on the partisan extremes,” that covered the racist, sexist rhetoric that characterized Harris’s candidacy as vice president.

The first 48 hours of news coverage surrounding the Harris campaign has been promising, according to Heckman, with “national political reporters tackling the impact of Harris’s gender and race head-on,” such as NPR’s Dominico Montanaro’s article, “With Biden out of the 2024 race, Democrats rally around Harris.” Harris is also receiving some serious coverage about her specific strengths, such as her debate style, her fundraising capabilities, her policy positions and her possible vice presidential picks.

Heckman concludes her commentary with hope that this trend will continue and that Kamala Harris will receive the news coverage that she deserves as a qualified contender.

You can read the full commentary here: “‘Viability’ is a dangerous euphemism

Meg Heckman’s writing on Harris has also been featured by Media Nation in “Meg Heckman on gender, ‘viability’ and the pitfalls of covering female politicians” and by The New York Times in “Kamala Harris Faces a Faster, Uglier Version of the Internet.”

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