4 Takeaways From the Democratic Debate, Gender Edition

“Voters expect women to be ‘above the fray.’”

— Amanda Hunter, research director at the Barbara Lee Family Foundation

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It was electric. It was fiery. It was feisty. The Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday was the most heated of the campaign so far, and — with two women on the stage and a newcomer with a track record of sexist comments — gender issues were never far from the conversation.

Here are four takeaways from the debate, through a gender lens.

The moment when …

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, after attacking former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for being an “arrogant billionaire,” presses him about allegations that his company was a hostile workplace for women.

“What we need to know is exactly what’s lurking out there,” she says. “He has gotten some number of women, dozens, who knows, to sign nondisclosure agreements both for sexual harassment and for gender discrimination in the workplace.”

Warren points to Bloomberg and says, “So, Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those nondisclosure agreements, so we can hear their side of the story?”

The takeaway …

The almost instantaneous reaction on Twitter and elsewhere suggested that this exchange between Warren and Bloomberg was the moment of the night.

But in going after Bloomberg (and everyone else on that stage) so unapologetically, unleashing anger in a way that is rarely seen on the debate stage, Warren took a risk, said Amanda Hunter, research director at the nonpartisan Barbara Lee Family Foundation, which supports women in politics.

“We know from our research that women have to be careful when going negative because voters expect women to be ‘above the fray,’” Hunter said.

During and immediately after the debate, some commenters — including the conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin — criticized Warren for being “mean,” “angry” and “nasty.”

And Warren knows that being visibly angry can work against her. In fact, during a previous debate, she — and Senator Amy Klobuchar — apologized for getting “really worked up,” explaining that her anger is rooted in passion, a justification that men are rarely expected to make.

On the flip side, that moment and Warren’s overall performance helped bring attention back to her after weak showings in the Iowa and New Hampshire voting, noted the Times politics reporter Maggie Astor. Warren’s marketing team announced on Twitter that the campaign raised more than $5 million since the start of the debate and, today, also drew the “most first-time donors ever.”

The moment when …

Bloomberg defends his company as a place with no tolerance for the kind of behavior #MeToo has exposed. He goes on to note that “we were awarded, we were voted the most — the best place to work, second best place in America.” Warren is then invited to comment and pushes Bloomberg on those nondisclosure agreements.

Bloomberg responds: “None of them accuse me of doing anything, other than maybe they didn’t like a joke I told. And there’s agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet and that’s up to them. They signed those agreements, and we’ll live with it.”

The takeaway …

Bloomberg’s “joke I told” moment landed hard, drawing some “whoas” and gasps from the audience and setting Twitter alight.

Bloomberg really fell short in demonstrating an understanding of issues like inequity and gender power dynamics within institutions, said Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “He relied on the responses that are so typical to counter these allegations. Like ‘I hire women, so therefore I must not be sexist.’”

Plus, Dittmar said, “his discounting of the fact that he was just joking was very much aligned with the current president and the very issues that voters, particularly Democratic women, had with Donald Trump.”

The moment when …

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota attributes her failure to recall the name of the president of Mexico to “momentary forgetfulness,” and Pete Buttigieg says, “But you’re staking your candidacy on your Washington experience.”

“You were not able to speak to literally the first thing about the politics of the country to our south,” he adds. Klobuchar turns to Buttigieg and says: “Are you trying to say that I’m dumb? Or are you mocking me here, Pete?”

The takeaway …

At this point in the race, Klobuchar should have known the name of Mexico’s president, the Times politics reporter Lisa Lerer said. But what Buttigieg did — through his tone and dynamic — was essentially to undermine Klobuchar’s experience. It was the classic case of the young male upstart putting down the older, more experienced woman.

And when Klobuchar called out Buttigieg for “mocking her,” she was highlighting the higher standards that female candidates are held to, said Hunter, of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation. “Women tend to pay a higher price for making mistakes on the campaign trail because women have to prove over and over that they are qualified,” she said.

But surprisingly, Hunter noted, recent polling by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation shows that “one of the biggest indicators of electability was being able to go toe-to-toe against the opposition” and Klobuchar’s assertiveness could have been seen by some as evidence of her ability to do just that.

The moment when …

Warren, after attacking Klobuchar for some of her policies, jumps in to defend her when everyone else is piling on her for forgetting the name of the president of Mexico. “This is not right. I understand that she forgot a name. It happens. It happens to everybody on this stage,” Warren interjects.

The takeaway …

That moment of solidarity between the two women, despite their differences, was significant, said Dittmar of Rutgers University.

By competing with and then defending each other, the two women onstage were signaling that they can disagree on substance and also bond over the “shared experiences and knowledge about what it’s like to be a woman in a space and on a stage dominated by men,” explained Dittmar, which she said echoed what she found in her research on women in Congress.

Today’s In Her Words is written by Alisha Haridasani Gupta and Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Sandra Stevenson.

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