{"id":19398,"date":"2013-01-27T18:14:13","date_gmt":"2013-01-27T23:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=19398"},"modified":"2013-01-28T10:51:11","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T15:51:11","slug":"the-feisty-secretary-clinton-an-object-of-media-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2013\/01\/the-feisty-secretary-clinton-an-object-of-media-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cFeisty\u201d Secretary Clinton\u2014An Object of Media Bias?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regarding the recent Senate committee hearings on the September 2012 attacks that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, several major media outlets described Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as, among other things, \u201cfeisty.\u201d Strictly from a definitional standpoint, the media\u2019s characterization appears unobjectionable. Webster\u2019s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary<\/em>, for example, most relevantly defines \u201cfeisty\u201d as \u201cquarrelsome, aggressive, belligerent, etc.\u201d and these words arguably capture at least some aspects of Secretary Clinton\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

A modest examination of American English usage suggests that \u201cfeisty\u201d is commonly used to refer to the behavior or character of people in a group (e.g., \u201cthe candidates had a feisty debate\u201d or \u201cit sure is a feisty crowd\u201d) or to an animal, particularly a small rambunctious animal (e.g., \u201cthat there is one feisty critter\u201d). Indeed, the word\u2019s proximate origins concern the temperamental nature of mixed-breed dogs, and its earliest origins concern the malodorous passing of gas\u2014hence a \u201cfisting hound\u201d in late 17th-century England was an undesirably flatulent dog.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cfeisty\u201d can also be used, of course, to describe the demeanor or behavior of an individual person. When used in that way, however, it seems more frequently to describe the elderly (\u201cfeisty octogenarian\u201d retrieved 17,200 Google hits), the relatively young, and\u2014it appears\u2014women, or at least certain women.<\/p>\n

What one does not find as readily, at least in contemporary writing, is the characterization of individual men as \u201cfeisty.\u201d For example, regarding the highly contentious second presidential debate in mid-October 2012\u2014during which there was much feistiness\u2014one or both of the candidates were variously described as \u201cfiery\u201d (usnews.com), \u201caggressive\u201d (foxnews.com), \u201cassertive\u201d (nytimes.com), and \u201cforceful\u201d (cnn.com). Fox News did call the debate \u201ca feistier face-off than the first round,\u201d but it did not describe either candidate as \u201cfeisty.\u201d Yet a quick Google search of \u201cfeisty Clinton\u201d pulled up over 43,000 results, and most or all of them appeared to relate to the January 23 Senate committee hearings (a product, no doubt, of newswire propagation).<\/p>\n

So why might it be that women are more likely than men to be characterized as \u201cfeisty\u201d when they are, to borrow again from Webster\u2019s<\/em>, \u201cquarrelsome, aggressive, [or] belligerent\u201d? The likely answer has something to do with expected but often unspoken norms of behavior, in this case linked to gender. When the eighty-year-old pummels a would-be robber, he or she is a \u201cfeisty octogenarian\u201d because eighty-year-olds are supposed to be frail, slow to react, and thus easy to mug. To be sure, the term \u201cfeisty\u201d is often modified by other adjectives, such as \u201cold\u201d or \u201clittle,\u201d denoting remoteness from a norm.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to state precisely the norm to which Secretary Clinton was being held by the media, but it presumably concerned the degree to which women are expected not to be too combative or aggressive, perhaps especially before a Senate subcommittee. If that assessment is correct, then it raises serious questions about the extent to which a real concept of gender equality has genuinely and deeply taken root in the mainstream media. It also calls into question, or continues to call into question, the extent to which reporters, writers, and editors are covering the news\u2014or can ever cover the news\u2014in a truly evenhanded fashion.<\/p>\n

Suggested Reading<\/em><\/p>\n

Erika Falk, Women for President: Media Bias in Nine Campaigns<\/em> (2d ed. 2010).<\/p>\n

Kim Fridkin Kahn, The Political Consequences of Being a Woman<\/em> (1996).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regarding the recent Senate committee hearings on the September 2012 attacks that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, several major media outlets described Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as, among other things, \u201cfeisty.\u201d Strictly from a definitional standpoint, the media\u2019s characterization appears unobjectionable. Webster\u2019s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, for example, most relevantly defines \u201cfeisty\u201d as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,76,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-media-journalism","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}