Competent or Likable? Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and the Presidential Double Bind

• In Event: To Lead or Not to Lead ...Palin, Ferraro, Clinton

Abstract

The historic 2008 presidential election has raised questions of gender and leadership. This paper addresses how gender and leadership intersected by analyzing 142 newspaper articles sampled from five newspapers across the country using the search terms Hillary, Palin, and leadership. The analysis found that the concept of leader is a difficult to transform metaphorical schema resulting in double binds with regard to (a) their femininity and masculinity and (b) the role of family.

Authors

• Colleen Arendt, Purdue University

• Natalie Litera, Purdue University

• Jeremy Fyke, Purdue University