A female friend and colleague of mine, a professor of chemistry at my university, recounted to me an incident in which she and a few other professors were being introduced by their department chair to a visiting speaker. The chair went around the group saying, “This is professor X”, “This is professor Y” and so on until it came to her and then he said “This is Z”, giving just her first name. Z is not someone who stands on ceremony. She is friendly in her demeanor, dresses casually, and is not offended when her students call her by her first name, like many other male and female professors. And yet, this incident rankled her because she was the only one being addressed this way. She felt belittled by comparison, less respected. She says that as a woman is science, she is often the only one in a group of her peers, and this kind of thing has happened more than once.
This is not uncommon, that women in the workplace have to endure a greater degree of unwanted familiarity than their male counterparts and this can affect their professional standing among their peers, making them seem less worthy of respect. Laura Bassett sees this dynamic at play in the way that female presidential candidates are more likely than male ones to be referred to by the first name.
In Washington, operatives who’ve spent years in the gender trenches have done a double take this week, fully aware that over the past decade, private research done by the feminist group EMILY’s List has shown a distinct pattern when it came to female candidates: Voters react much more favorably to women running for office when their last name is used rather than their first name. EMILY’s List has arguably invested more heavily in Harris than any candidate since Hillary Clinton, yet even they leaned into using her first name only out of the gate. What gives?
We do tend to call male presidential candidates—Obama, Bush, Trump, Biden—by their last names, and women—Hillary, Kamala, Tulsi—by their first. It could be just a matter of practicality: Hillary needed to be distinguished from the other President Clinton, and Kamala is a more distinctive name than Harris, whereas Trump and Biden are more unique names than Donald and Joe. But according to research EMILY’s List has been conducting internally for the past decade or so, the habit has negative political consequences for the women.
…EMILY’s List has never made this research public, as it only consists of split-testing on various polls, as opposed to a comprehensive report—and even they don’t always abide by their own findings. Shortly after Biden stepped aside, the group’s digital team tweeted a graphic of Harris’ first name only with the text, “We’re #allinforKamala, are you?” Asked about the use of the first name only in the graphic, running contrary to the research, a spokesperson thanked me for flagging it and sent an amended graphic including her last name that the group plans to use going forward.
Yet the momentum of “Kamala” seems unstoppable—a stack of internal research is clearly no match for it. “Harris” just can’t keep up. Liberal Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, citing similar research research on first names, chided her followers about using Harris’s first name on Twitter, only to get Community Noted: “Jennifer Rubin referred to Kamala Harris as ‘Kamala’ multiple times two days ago,” observed the community.
In the current race, ‘Kamala’ is how many Kamala Harris’s campaign and supporters, not just her opponents, immediately started referring to her. I get plenty of emails from the Democratic party and candidates. They seem to be all over the place when it comes to the first/last name question on Harris. A few moments ago I got one where the sender is ‘Team Kamala’ and the logo at the top is ‘Harris for President’ while the body of the text refers to ‘Kamala Harris’, ‘Vice-President Harris’ and ‘Kamala’.
I will follow my usual practice of giving the full name whenever I first refer to someone in a post and then subsequently just the last name, irrespective of the gender of the person I am referring to, with the sole exception of you-know-who will be first referred to by his full and glorious title of serial sex abuser and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT) and then as just SSACFT afterwards.
Belittling… I hear SSACFT had a big speech Friday afternoon and he did not hold back. Even Swedish TV journalists were taken aback by the scale of slanderous lies.
Short: KH for president 47. KH47?
I contrast to the Dems’ “Kamala, Kamala, Kamala, …”, I would like the Rethugs to shout their heroe’s name in unison as “SSACFT, SSACFT, SSACFT …” 😀
Sorry, “I contrast…” --> “In contrast…”
I became aware of this in 2016 and was careful, then and since, to refer to Trump’s opponent only as “Clinton”. If someone misconstrued that as referring to her husband, even in context, well, more fool them.
For the same reason, so far I’ve exclusively referred to Harris by her last name. Once you’re aware of the issue, it’s just basic respect.
I had a similar thought a few years ago and try to consistently refer to everyone by their last name. Although, when I am trying to be funny or sarcastic I may intentionally refer to some by their first name (e.g. The Donald). Of course, written humor doesn’t always get across well. So, when referring to Hillary Clinton I would either say Clinton and expect people to understand I meant Hillary Clinton from context or use her full name. As I see it, using the first name of someone who is not closely associated with you (family/friend/co-worker) implies either close familiarity or lower social status. If it is a mark of respect to use the last name for a man, that same respect should be granted to all people, man or woman, white or colored.
Mind, I don’t expect I’ve been 100% successful in refraining from using first names at all times. I’m certain if someone cared enough about what I write they could find examples where I referred to female politicians by their first name. But it is my intention to avoid doing so. Finally, I don’t feel prescriptive about it. The purpose of writing is communication (or occasionally obfuscation). If other people use first names and it’s clear what their meaning is, at most I might suggest they think about the difference is usage. I won’t tell someone they are wrong to use first names rather than last or full ones.
The name thing is a classic example of microaggression.
It’s similar to the way various fascists insist on referring to the rapist and convicted felon as President rather than former President, but call the actual President Joe, or Biden.
It’s called face.
Sonof
So that’s not you in the ‘What makes a good running mate?’ thread yesterday going on in all caps about HILLARY!?!?
Or numerous previous threads?
Aside: for a long while I worked for a Japanese company, and with Japanese colleagues. I noticed something early about the way they addressed people. It was always polite, with the name followed by “-san”. I knew from watching the Richard Chamberlain version of “Shogun” that this was an honorific. Fair enough. Except…
Japanese men got referred to by their family name, followed by -san. Hiraoka-san. Semoto-san. And so on.
Japanese women got referred to by their given name, followed by -san -- Mariko-san, Kimiko-san, and so on.
European men… got referred to by their given name, followed by -san. Paul-san, Andrew-san, and so on.
I never brought it up, but it always struck me as being (thanks Tethys) a classic microaggression -- a near-perfect one in fact, because they were using the honorific, so you couldn’t complain. It is of course also somewhat complicated by the fact that among themselves Japanese men are referred to by their family name first (like Bajorans… 😉 ), so e.g. Takeshi Kitano would be referred to in Japan as Kitano Takeshi. I’m not sure if the same applies to Japanese women. It’s a pretty sexist (and racist) society, though, so none of this is surprising.
I would be cool with “Super-Kamala”.
Her superpower is, she laughs when idiots try to insult her.
Tethys @8:
In fact, it wasn’t. He referred to her by her surname, without caps. The only person who referred to Clinton as just ‘Hillary’ in that thread was you.
It is KA-Make-America-Laugh-Again. Any suggestions for the K and the first A?
BTW in Israeli politics several men were/are commonly referred to by given names or nicknames, usually, but not exclusively, those who entered politics from a military career -- eg Arik (Sharon), Raful (Eitan), Teddy (Kollek, former mayor of Jerusalem), Chich (Shlomo Lahat, former mayor of Tel Aviv). As for women, while Golda Meir was known by her first name, any other women in Israeli politics I can think of were known by their last names.
sonofrojblake @9: I think it’s purely a matter of whatever the normal practice is in a given culture. Similar to the Japanese example you gave, when I was serving in the Air Force many years ago and was stationed at K-2 Air Base in South Korea, I quickly learned that both males and females had three names, a family name first, then a generation name, and ending with a personal name. Married women retained their family names.
IIUC, in Iceland, folks have a personal name followed by, rarely a surname, but more often the father’s personal name with a suffix meaning son or daughter; and the normal practice is to call everyone by their personal names unless disambiguation is required. Björk Guðmundsdóttir (Björk, daughter of Guðmundar) may correctly be called just Björk, not because she’s a rock star, but because it’s just the normal Icelandic practice.
birgerjohansson @10: yes, laugh at them! They take themselves very seriously. 😎
@ Tethys, 8: confused again, dear?
I used the word “Hillary” precisely once in that thread and I was quoting you.
Who were you actually thinking of? Or like a badly-programmed chat bot, did you just hallucinate something that’s just false?
I had another thought about this. I am not a misogynist (or racist, or homophobic, or anti-semitic, or whatever, pretty much) -- I just don’t hold those views. But if someone says I am, or says that something I’ve said comes across that way, my first thought is to interrogate myself -- “hang on -- DO I think that way? Could what I’ve said be construed that way?”. And after looking at what I’ve said or how I feel, if I find I’ve felt or inadvertently or otherwise expressed such feelings, I’ll do my best to correct them, with an apology or an adjustment to my attitude.
But if someone just makes shit up -- says something along the lines of the easily disproven bullshit in #8 -- at that point it’s safe to relax. Their criticism can be, now and forever, safely ignored, because it’s not coming from anything in reality, it’s just something that’s going on in their head.
So please, (almost) anyone else, pick me up if you think I’ve expressed an -ism. I’ll do my best to fix it. Tethys -- you do you, dear. Make up some more bullshit, by all means. Pretend I’ve said whatever reprehensible nonsense will make you feel good about venting. I no longer feel any need to bother responding to your fabrications… so, thanks, I guess? It’s going to save a little time.
I live in California so for a while I had all three of my Congressional representatives be women: Senators Diane Feinstein and Kamala Harris, and Congressperson Zoe Lofgren. California tends to be pretty informal when it comes to names, even of leaders. I have worked in many Silicon Valley companies and it is usual to refer to even the CEO by their first name.
So, both Lofgren and Harris were typically referred to as Zoe and Kamala. Feinstein was often called ‘DiFi’ because Diane is such a a common name.
I do intend to use ‘President Harris’ to give due respect to our first woman President (yes, it IS going to happen), but I don’t think she would be offended if ‘Kamala’ was used in a friendly manner.
Don Old is a good abbreviation for SSACFT when spoken and confine SSACFT for when written?