March is Women’s History Month and the 2021 theme is “Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to Be Silenced.” And yet, as a country, we still tell women that the best way to get ahead is to keep their mouths shut.
A few weeks ago, Neera Tanden withdrew her nomination for director of the Office of Management and Budget after the Senate prepared to reject her candidacy. Her qualifications were not in question, nor her past experience. Instead, senators focused on Tanden’s use of social media and her sometimes caustic tweets. There is zero chance that a man would be rejected under the same circumstances. Similarly unfair expectations have been applied to other female candidates put forth by President Joe Biden.
Not long after Tanden’s contentious hearing, Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland fielded questions far more intense than those posed to her predecessors. Haaland was narrowly confirmed, but other female candidates, especially women of color, face uphill battles for confirmation, including Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, Biden’s choices for associate attorney general and the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division. Republicans have put forth dubious objections to both candidates. They’ve argued that Gupta is anti-cop, despite her endorsement from police unions, and that Clarke is anti-Semitic, despite her endorsement from the Anti-Defamation League. They’ve raised no objections about their expertise.
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Another example occurred in the summer of 2020, as Democratic nominee Biden considered candidates to be his running mate. Biden had promised to pick a woman early in the campaign, but his advisers clashed over which woman. Some of Biden’s allies worried that Kamala Harris was “too ambitious,” as though every male vice president hasn’t nursed ambitions to become president one day themselves. Many of their objections derived from her pointed criticism of Biden’s past positions on racial issues. They preferred a candidate who hadn’t spoken freely or voiced her opinions during a primary debate. Of course, these concerns obscured Biden’s own history as a presidential candidate in 2008, when he had routinely criticized Barack Obama, before becoming his vice president.
Once again, that double standard was on glaring display as senators responded to Neera Tanden's nomination. Senator Joe Manchin announced he would vote no on the nomination because of Tanden's mean tweets, arguing that they would undermine bipartisanship. Yet Manchin voiced no such objection when former President Donald Trump nominated Ric Grenell, an infamous Twitter troll who was forced to delete thousands of sexist and racist comments from his Twitter account, as ambassador to Germany. One would think that bipartisanship would be at least as important when an ambassador represents the nation on the world's stage.
Similarly, Susan Collins revealed that she would vote no because Tanden didn't have the required “temperament” to lead the Office of Management and Budget. What temperament is required to lead OMB exactly? Whatever standard Collins applies for OMB leadership must also apply to the Supreme Court—a lifetime position with almost no oversight.
Never was this double standard more obvious than in the Senate hearings for Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court. He screamed, cried, insulted the senators, declared his love of beer, and contemptuously rejected any suggestion that he may have harmed others. Meanwhile, Christine Blasey Ford retained her composure, calmly answered demeaning questions, and risked her safety and reputation to do the right thing. Collins voiced no such concerns about Kavanaugh, despite his antics during his confirmation hearing. Ford was deemed the untrustworthy one, and Kavanaugh was rewarded with a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land.
This double standard is especially insulting given how Tanden and Kavanaugh comported themselves in the Senate chambers. Knowing that women are always expected to apologize for how their words make others feel, Tandem apologized for any harm she may have caused and accepted the rebukes delivered by senators on live television in front of millions of viewers. Kavanaugh offered no such remorse for his actions and sputtered with rage that senators would have the audacity to ask for an apology.
With Manchin and Collins voting no, Tanden pulled her nomination and OMB is left without the benefit of her leadership. She would have brought unique firsthand experience with so many of the programs under the agency’s oversight, an essential qualification offered by few candidates. I hope that the Department of Justice won’t be deprived of Gupta and Clarke’s expertise as well. But more importantly, I grieve for the girls and young women who are watching. It’s nice that we study women’s history in March, but it means nothing if we are also sending a very clear message that women must remain quiet or hold themselves to different standards than men in order to succeed in government and politics.
Lindsay M. Chervinsky, Ph.D. is a presidential historian and Scholar in Residence at the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College and the author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution. She can be found on Twitter at @lmchervinsky.
