Joe Biden named Kamala Harris to be the next VP. On Aug 6, a dozen nationally prominent women leaders wrote an open letter to national print and broadcast media imploring them to not engage in stereotypically poor coverage of any woman VP choice. They sent the alarm together under the banner of “We Have Her Back.” You can download the letter below.
With the selection of Harris, much joy was expressed by Americans who are Black, female and of Indian descent. That is, she is a triple beneficiary of membership in legally protected status groups, defined by color, sex and ethnicity. However, this legal status as a threefold “protected” person can become liabilities in the current Trump defamatory-enhanced climate of American politics. She will be attacked, not just on policy positions, but as a person.
Here are the types of media coverage the We Have Her Back group wants eliminated. I have substituted their generic “a woman” with Harris, the name of the actual VP candidate:
• Reporting on Harris’ ambition as though the very nature of seeking political office, or any higher job for that matter is not a mission of ambition
• Relationships with partners, staff, colleagues and donors are characterized differently if Harris is not seen as subservient or supportive
• Reporting on whether Harris is liked (a subjective metric at best) as though it is news when the “likeability” of men is never considered a legitimate news story.
• Reporting, even as asides in a story, on Harris’ looks, weight, tone of voice, attractiveness and hair is sexist news coverage unless the same analysis is applied to every candidate
• Reporting on questions of electability Harris is, in itself, a perpetuation of a stereotype about the ability of women to lead
• Reporting on doubts Harris may not be a qualified leader even when she has experience equal to or exceeding male leaders
• Reporting on the heritage of Black women or women of color perpetuates a misunderstanding about who is legitimately American
• Reporting on and using pictures of Harris showing anger at injustice or any other kind of passion in communication perpetuates racist tropes that suggest unfairly that women are too emotional or irrational in their leadership or worse “hate America”
The Group Wants Media to Avoid Attribution Bias
Allow me to describe Causal Attribution theory as briefly as I can. Whenever we ask people to explain why events happen, we are asking for their version of reasons, explanations, causes. Psychologists call this the attribution (assignment) of responsibility for events. Over the years, researchers settled on four categories into which all explanations can be fit. There are two Internal and two External groups, each paired with Stable and Variable causes.
The women leaders of We’ve Got Her Back rightly ask why there is a different standard to explain men and women’s accomplishments and successes. Choosing situational (external) explanations discounts women’s accomplishments. Simultaneously, men get too much credit for being personally responsible (internal causes). This is the Gender Attributional Bias. Over time, the discounting of women has normalized the undercutting (externalizing) of how American society explains women’s success. The key fact from the research is that the successes of both men and women can be factually identical, yet the explanations (attributions) differ, favoring men.
You can illustrate the Success/Failure Bias with an example. Why you did so well on a test? You say you studied hard. Or you are simply brilliant. To claim brilliance is to describe a personal trait that is considered permanent (a stable characteristic). Internal, stable causes are the most personalized delivering the most credit (if the outcome is positive, otherwise it brings the most scrutiny and blame). Studying hard is less constant (thus variable) and considered effort. Effort still credits the person. It is internal, but brilliance is stronger praise considering its stability. A person with positive mental health is likely to demonstrate the success/failure bias. It’s good to take credit for success.
Trump’s predictable childish defamatory assaults against others, especially women, she’s “nasty,” attacks his targets’ core traits (internal, stable attributions). In a way, he is complimenting their strengths. Harris is known as verbally fluent, as one who can cut shred opponents’ defenses. Her demonstrable toughness, the opposite of Trump’s faux, paper-thin pretense of “toughness,” is what he fears. Thus he attacks.
Attribution (Explanation) Categories
- Causes Internal to the person / Stable, relatively constant [Traits]
- Causes Internal to the person / Variable, changeable, inconsistent [Effort]
- Causes External to the person / Stable [Aspects of the tasks, environment]
- Causes External to the person / Variable [Fate, luck]
3 Biases in the Attribution (Explanatory) Process
- Gender Bias: Research shows that both women and men explain men’s success from Internal causes (smart, hard working); while women’s success — whose situation is exactly the same as the men described — is explained by External causes (inheritance make success inevitable, affirmative action to promote women-owned business). This is a shameful pattern.
- Success/Failure Bias: Internal explanations are preferred for success (taking personal credit). We tend to blame failure on External causes, i.e., test was unfair or poorly constructed. But as you see above, explanations for success are gendered.
- Actor/Observer Bias: This bias is called the Fundamental Attribution Error and is the one most relevant to bullying. It is the basis for all victim blaming. How people explain events depends on perspective. If they are “inside” the action to be explained (as the actor) their actions are in response external (to them) situational factors. By contrast, if they are outsiders, observers, there is a blindness to situational pressures that actors experience. Explanations for the same behaviors diverge, depending on whether an actor or observer.
Attribution Biases & Real World Practices
Blaming Bullied Targets
That ignorance of the power of environmental factors on an actor’s behavior leads observers (think HR, management, investigators, lawyers) to overestimate the role of the actor’s personality (called dispositional, internal factors). Thus targets are seen as poor performers deserving mistreatment and abuse. In fact, it is the bully who controls all aspects of the target’s environment — who is selected for persecution, tactics adopted, timing (onset, duration, temporary holds), justification shared with upper management, and rationale for the mistreatment (was just practicing management, target made me do it, following orders from above). The attribution bias is not an intellectual academic point; the lies vs. truth that mirror the observer vs. actor perspectives are the source of the extreme injustice targets live with. How can outsiders not see what the bully is doing? Why blame me for bully’s misconduct?
The Rape Myth
Rape victims should not have dressed in a certain way to entice rapists. It is the rapist, like the workplace bully, who makes all the choices that affect their victims’ lives for so long. Courts ostensibly have new rules to minimize blaming victims. However, devious attorneys for accused rapists still find ways to retrigger the emotional harm of victims in court testimony. Hence, many victims eschew testifying in favor of not reliving the experience in a very public setting. The actor-observer bias sustains America’s rape culture.
Battered Partners
Just as bullied individuals are accused of provoking their perpetrators, battered wives are told to not trigger their emotionally blunted partners, lest they be subjected to “deserved” violence. In fact when victims of domestic/partner violence stand up for their dignity with the batterers, the risk of death increases. The men with the juvenile notion that if they cannot “have” their women no one can are the ones prone to kill those women, regardless of a court-issued “protective” order. America took too long to criminalize domestic violence. It obviously will require more time to actually hold violent men accountable in ways that guarantee battered partners both physical and psychological safety.
