Harris navigates double standard in unscripted moments as VP



Amie Parnes
Thu, January 12, 2023

Before Vice President Harris swore in Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) last week, she offered a rare glimpse of levity.

“Hello, Madame Vice President!” Bennet said in his classic baritone voice as he walked into the Old Senate Chamber.

“Hello, Senator Bennet!” Harris replied, echoing Bennet’s pitch to a T.

The moment went viral on Twitter, with some commenters on the social media platform asking to see more of those lighter, organic moments from Harris.

Since taking office two years ago, Harris — the nation’s first female vice president — has largely stuck to the script, and taken care to avoid missteps or “hot mic” moments that might undermine President Biden and the administration.

Harris has been careful — some allies say “too careful” — about giving the public a window into her more personal side since becoming vice president.

It’s been an intentional move to ensure that the role is taken seriously.

“She has never wanted to go off message in any way,” one ally said, highlighting Harris’s position not only as the first female vice president but the first Black and South Asian to hold that office. “She knows what the significance of her role means to so many people. She was very aware of that coming in.”

Allies of the vice president also point out that as a woman, Harris faces the same double standard as other high-profile female politicians, including former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, that can force one to think twice between offering a joking or playful tone.

Strategists and political observers — both male and female — acknowledge that it’s more difficult for women — from politicians to chief executives and other public figures — to show their more personal side without being scrutinized or mocked. While Biden, for example, can brush off moments like when he described the passage of the Affordable Care Act as a “big f—— deal” on camera, it can be difficult for women to do the same.

Ahead of the 2020 election, Clinton herself warned Harris and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) about the double standard that she said is “alive and well” and “endemic to our political system, to business, to the media, to every part of society.”

“Just be prepared … to have the most horrible things said about you,” Clinton said at a book event in 2017, Politico reported at the time. “There’s a particular level of vitriol, from both the right and the left, directed at women. Make no mistake about that.”

Katherine Jellison, a professor at Ohio University who focuses on gender in politics, suggested that Harris faces challenges that are different than those the men who previously served in her role didn’t see.

“She has to show that she’s up to the job at a time when people want their leaders to show more of their human side, but for a woman politician it is a tightrope,” Jellison said. “She needs to come across as a decisive leader and show a personal side but not be too personable and stereotypically maternal or sisterly, because that might chip away at her credibility as a political leader.”

Amanda Hunter, the executive director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to increase women’s representation in politics, said Harris is “challenging stereotypes every day by simply doing the job.”

“Men can tell, but women have to show,” she added.

Like Biden, Harris’s approval ratings in polls remain underwater, with more people disapproving of her job as vice president than approving. Some Harris fans wonder if she should make more changes and let the public see more glimpses of the real Harris to try to improve those numbers.

Those who know her say Harris is funny. And she’s relatable.

She loves to cook and likes to throw in an f-bomb when talking to friends and family. When she’s not wearing a suit, she dons her Chuck Taylors. She loves surprising associates — and even reporters — on birthdays and for the birth of children.

“She needs to embrace it,” one Democratic strategist said. “She needs to take some risks.”

In the past year, Harris has sought to highlight more of her personal side.

In October, she made her first, and only, foray as vice president into the comedy talk show circuit, when she appeared on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

In her interview, she talked about how family group text chats are “no longer a thing” because of security protocols. The messages she does send and receive are also emoji-less. “High-class problems,” she quipped.

In April, she did an interview with The Ringer on her love for Wordle, The New York Times’s five-letter word puzzle, where she revealed that she starts with the same word, NOTES, every day.

Harris allies say these examples show she’s breaking through.

“A better 360-degree view of the vice president is emerging,” one ally said.

“She travels a lot, she does a lot of social media, little by little this stuff is breaking through,” the ally continued, highlighting the vice president’s role and voice in abortion, immigration and voting rights. “You’re starting to see those returns tally up. It shows that different sides of her are breaking through.”

Democratic strategist Christy Setzer pointed to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as an example of a woman who has successfully threaded the needle, allowing the public to see her lighter side, particularly with her mastery of social media.

“In general, women can be funny, quirky, even sexy, and be politicians, but it’s so much more likely to be misinterpreted and not given the benefit of the doubt,” Setzer said.

“The obvious answer for most women? Taking few chances, sticking to the script,” she added. “It’s really a difficult tightrope to walk, and the downsides of getting it wrong are large.”

Nayyera Haq, a communications strategist and Obama administration veteran, said one of the big advantages of the disaggregation of media “is an ability to engage directly with a rising generation of voters.”

She pointed to the Instagram video Harris did in 2020 when she taught Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) how to make a proper tuna melt sandwich and the impromptu video she did in less than a minute when she explained to The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart how to brine a turkey.

“I would love to know what she nerds out on,” Haq said. “People want a leader to be someone they can find a connection to.”

 The Hill.