Kareem Crayton · December 2013
81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1799 (2013)
This Essay engages current research on gender norms and biases and the way they interact in the political sphere with female candidates. Since Hillary Clinton’s campaign for U.S. President in 2008, many scholarly retrospectives have presented various reasons that her candidacy faltered. As a starting point, this piece addresses one particular account that is rooted in implicit bias theory. After outlining the application of this claim, which suggests that implicit bias is responsible for her loss, I show that the more conventional and structural explanations for Clinton’s political defeat in the presidential primary contests are likely more responsible. Indeed, most female candidates face these issues in competing for office. These explanations, however, still leave open the real and present concern that gendered expectations do tend to shape the way female candidates craft their campaign strategies. For any future female candidate for president, confronting these expectations will remain a challenge.
