October 8, 2020

Kamala Harris during the vice presidential debate on Wednesday.Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

By Alisha Haridasani Gupta

Gender Reporter

“Mr. Vice President, I’m Speaking.”

— Senator Kamala Harris during the vice-presidential debate

Continue reading the main story

There was some largely useless plexiglass and a now-infamous fly, all against a backdrop of a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 210,000 Americans and infected the president.

But other than that, the vice-presidential debate was, by many measures, about as ordinary as a debate can get. Both Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence did exactly what they were expected to do — defend their running mates at the top of the ticket without creating too much of a stir. They stuck to their talking points, even if it meant not answering the questions they had been asked, and managed to keep things relatively civil, compared to last week’s presidential debate.

At the end of the night, both candidates ended up with the same amount of speaking time, according to a CNN tally, and the debate barely shifted voters’ minds one way or the other, according to a snap poll by FiveThirtyEight and Ipsos.

For many women, though, the debate was anything but ordinary. Here are three gender takeaways from the night.

Continue reading the main story

Harris made history

Ms. Harris is the first woman of color to become the vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, and on Wednesday night she carried that burden with grace, said Glynda Carr, chief executive of Higher Heights, an organization that helps Black women run for public office.

“Senator Harris stepping on that stage was bringing the history of African-American women to that stage,” Ms. Carr said.

Political strategists and experts also pointed to the fact that Ms. Harris had successfully pushed up against, and perhaps even shifted, the many expectations for female candidates. “I thought we saw Harris really kind of transcend a lot of the gender issues,” said Betsy Fischer Martin, executive director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University.

When judging candidates, a majority of voters usually look for people who can understand the challenges Americans face, who can go toe to toe with their opponents and who can hold their own in a debate, according to research by the Women and Politics Institute and the Barbara Lee Foundation.

“She checked all of those boxes last night,” Ms. Martin said, adding that she thought that the debate had “rendered some of the gender discussion as yesterday’s news.”

Soon after the debate, 69 percent of the almost 2,000 respondents in a survey by FiveThirtyEight said that Ms. Harris’s performance had been “very good” or “somewhat good,” and her favorability rating jumped by four points.

But she faced criticism … and double standards

Not all viewers thought Ms. Harris delivered a strong performance.

“She is applauded for her knowledge,” the Republican pollster Frank Luntz wrote on Twitter. “But they just don’t like her ‘condescending reactions.’”

“Pence absolutely wrecking Harris on Biden’s economic plan here,” the Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro wrote on Twitter during the debate. “Her smirking isn’t helping.”

That commentators focused on Ms. Harris’s tone and her looks — not the policies she was discussing or her professional experience — was an example of the double standards that women in power are held to.

It also underscored the persistent and waffly notion of ‘likability’ that looms over female candidates.

“We should be talking about the issues she raised,” said Tina Tchen, chief executive of the Time’s Up movement against sexual harassment and chief of staff to former first lady Michelle Obama. “If we’re back to likability as an issue, was Mike Pence likable or not? Is that a factor as we evaluate him?”

These double standards might also have been the reason Ms. Harris felt she needed to lay out her entire résumé midway through the debate, highlighting the roles she has held in the past. Research by the Barbara Lee Foundation found that women running for office consistently have to prove they are qualified, whereas “for men, their qualification is assumed.”

Mike Pence during the vice-presidential debate on Wednesday.Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

And she was interrupted over and over

From early on in the debate, Mr. Pence interrupted Ms. Harris during her allotted speaking time, steamrollering over her answers (10 times, according to a CBS tally) and prompting her to say, “I’m speaking,” over and over.

It became the line that spawned a thousand memes.

But playful social media fodder aside, those moments were also painfully recognizable for women across the country, crystallizing the unequal work environments that women still have to function in.

“I experienced what I think a lot of women experienced, regardless of their political persuasion, which was, we’ve been here before,” Ms. Tchen said. “We’ve been in those meetings where we got a side look from a white man or got interrupted by a white man.”

“I think she met the challenge that exists for women and women of color in a professional setting,” Ms. Tchen added. “But the fact that those moments still occur on the national stage is what’s frustrating. The bigger issue is to get to a place where that challenge doesn’t exist in the first place.”

Readers: What did you think of the debate last night? Who won and why? Email us at inherwords@nytimes.com.

What else is happening

Here are five articles from The Times you may have missed.

Richard A. Chance

“I go right back to LinkedIn because it’s on fire.” In an unexpected development for what has long been the most polite and perhaps the dullest of the major social networks, Black LinkedIn is thriving. [Read the story]

“The fly didn’t help.” It was a night of somber, serious suits and signals for both Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. Then the bug arrived, writes the New York Times critic Vanessa Friedman. [Read the story]
“Full of humor and biting wit.” The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Louise Glück, one of America’s most celebrated poets, “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” [Read the story]
“It was like he claimed me — that’s how it felt.” Amy Dorris recently went public with accusations that Donald J. Trump assaulted her at the U.S. Open in 1997. Two friends say she told them the same story shortly after she attended the event. [Read the story]
“It’s been very hard, very lonesome.” The first semester of college has never been stranger. The pandemic has made it harder to meet people. Classes and clubs have moved online. Students often eat alone. [Read the story]

In Her Words is edited by Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Sandra Stevenson.

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here to get future installments. You can also follow us on Instagram or email us at inherwords@nytimes.com.

Continue reading the main story