Panelists on āMorning Joeā claimed Thursday that voters who expressed uncertainty about Vice President Kamala Harrisā policies or leadership abilities were āgender biased.ā
Harris has come under fire for not providing details on policy and for generally avoiding the media, including not holding press conferences since President Joe Biden announced he was ending his reelection bid July 21. āMorning Joeā co-host Mika Brzezinski and guests Huma Abedin and Forbes Women editor Maggie McGrath said that those who expressed doubts about Harris needed to āuse their imaginationā and overcome āstereotypes.ā
āIt shows the real-life ramifications of the underrepresentation of women in leadership. Effectively, what researchers found is that when people assess a woman for a role she has never held before, they need to use their imagination, and they are bad at using their imagination, according to this research,ā McGrath told Brzezinski.
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āIt seems as though ambition is still a bad word when it comes to women. A lot of these amorphous feelings, this idea that women are emotional, unlikable, difficult, some of the other terms that came up in that report, itās like the more accomplished you are, the more suspect you are,ā Abedin, a long-time aide to Hillary Clinton, said. āThere was a term called Tall Poppy Syndrome, which I thought was very interesting, the more you stand out, the more youāre criticized as a woman. And to be a commander-in-chief, to be running to be commander-in-chief, well, thereās no greater, higher ambition than that. So I think some part of it is gender biased.ā
She has backed away from left-wing positions she held during her campaign for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination for president primarily through statements by campaign aides to reporters. Harrisā proposal to allow the Federal Trade Commission to impose āharsh penaltiesā for āprice gougingā by grocery stores unveiled during an Aug. 16 speech on economic policy.
The vice president has also been vague on many policy details during her campaign. Her campaign posted an āissuesā section on its website, but it appeared to be a cut-and-paste from the reelection site for Biden.
āMy biggest takeaway is that the onus to fix biased environments is not on those who are most affected, but on the rest of us and we do that in two really big ways. The first, letās quantify, define and measure what exactly leadership potential looks like. In a business environment, this might be setting measurable goals for your direct reports and then tracking their progress. So youāve literally seen the record and can make a decision based on that,ā McGrath told Brzezinski.
āThe other big thing we need to do is look at our own stereotypes that might be clouding our judgment. Lindsay Kohler is a great Forbes Women contributor who has written about this, and she says we should all take an implicit association test to measure our own biases,ā McGrath continued. āYou can do that online, go to Project Implicit. I tried it last night. They have a number of different exercises and itās uncomfortable, but then once you know the ways in which youāre biased, you can work to fix them and ā and hopefully build a more equitable and fair future.ā
Harris leads former President Donald Trump by 2.2% in the RealClearPolling average of polls from Sept. 11 to Oct. 1, with the vice presidentās lead dropping to 2% when Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, independent candidate Cornel West and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver are included in surveys.
(Featured Image Media Credit:Ā Screenshot/Rumble/MSNBC)
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