Why Harris vs Trump is turning out to be battle of sexes

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are contesting an election which has become a battle of the sexes now. This is like an unstated fact in the 2024 US presidential election. Neither of the two candidates mentions gender, but it is ever-present. Then, it is no surprise that Donald Trump went to Joe Rogan’s podcast, which has a primarily male demographic, and Harris to ‘Call Her Daddy’, which has a female audience. This is because Harris knows that American women support her and Trump knows he has the backing of American men.
With less than a week left until the US elections, gender has become an important issue in US elections 2024.
But both the candidates know that they shouldn’t mention it directly.
“Listen, I am running because I believe that I am the best person to do this job at this moment for all Americans, regardless of race and gender,” Kamala Harris told CNN.
It’s not that she is a woman, but that she is “dangerously liberal and weak”, said Trump.
Both candidates have stayed away from gender attacks.
This is an election where both Harris and Trump are at a tie in the battleground states after Harris was leading after she began campaigning.
They know they need the support of the opposite sex.
“It’s Whac-A-Mole — he’s got to get some women, so men can take him over the top, we’ve got to get some men, so women can take her over the top,” Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster told the New York Times. “It’s exactly the same formula, just mirror image.”
Even then, this election is increasingly about Trump’s primary supporters, who are men, and Harris’s supporters, who are women.
There is more to it.
The win or loss of Harris’ campaign could well be a “referendum” on the role of women in American life, reported the New York Times.
“Madame President” would be a new thing for America, reports the BBC.
Trump hasn’t attacked Harris as a woman.
The Trump campaign has never really said that she is not capable because she is a woman. Instead, they have said she is “weak, dishonest and dangerously liberal” and that is why she will lose.
But the issue of gender has been addressed indirectly.
A senior adviser of the Trump campaign says he’s confident about a Trump win because “the male gender gap gives us the edge.”
This is not the first time a woman presidential candidate sees sexism. The campaign of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate in 2016, also faced it, reports NYT.
Pennsylvania Congresswoman Madeleine Dean realised “there was something about her [Hilary]”.
Later, she realised that it was that Hilary was a woman.
But there is a stark difference in the Harris and Hilary campaigns.
Now, the US has seen the MeToo movement, and it is not the first time a woman has been on the Presidential ticket.
But Democrats are exercising caution in celebrating just that.
“We’re all protecting our hearts right now, having been through this before,” Liz Shuler, the first woman elected to lead the A.F.L.-C.I.O told NYT.
“We’ve come further, even since 2020, with women leading in ways we’ve never seen before. To not be able to cross that ultimate threshold of the highest position of power in the world would be a sucker punch.”
The US has also seen women coming to the forefront and speaking about their abortion rights.
These forward leaps have been a little too far for conservative Americans.
This has led to some men feeling “left behind” and the changes were a forward leap for conservative Americans who abide by traditional gender roles.
In the US, some men feel the efforts to promote gender equality have gone too far, reports CBS.
This makes it tough for Kamala Harris to reach out to men who think the world is changing too rapidly, reports the BBC.
All these factors have widened the gender gap in voting.
A survey by the NYT and Sienna college found that women have maintained their years-long support base for Democrats and men for Trump. Harris has an advantage of 16 percentage points with female voters and Trump 11-point percentage with male voters.
The Trump campaign has managed to attack Harris and her gender without ever mentioning it. The Harris campaign has managed to defend her gender and her rights without ever mentioning that the elections have become about gender now.
Trump’s vice-presidential candidate took a dig at “women like Harris” who were “childless cat ladies”.
Even Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, has been called “Tampon Tim” for supporting a law which permitted free menstrual products in school bathrooms, reported NYT.
The Harris campaign mentions how Trump will “erode abortion rights for women”.
At an event in Philadelphia, former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a Republican Harris supporter, gave a clear message to the suburban women whom the campaign is trying to reach out to.
“We are going to reject the misogyny that we have seen from Donald Trump and JD Vance,” she said.
Harris, has taken a different approach from Hilary, whose slogan was “I’m with her.”
She does not mention her gender at all.
Harris is trying to reach out to men.
Trump is trying to reach out to women. You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared,” said Trump. “You will be protected. I will be your protector.”
Trump is trying to tell women that he will protect them. Harris is trying to assert that they can protect themselves.
“I think Mrs. Commander-in-Chief has a nice ring to it,” Lizzo, the Grammy Award-winning singer and Detroit native.
Trump, on the other hand, is reaching out to men who find it hard to adapt to the new world.
“Manhood is Under Attack,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
“Trump took the locker room talk out of the locker room – and his audience loved it. Riffing about penis size at a political rally, it was the ultimate pushback against stifling political correctness”, reported BBC.
Democrats like Barack Obama are also reaching out to men. But they are going with tough love.
Some men “aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that”, said Barack Obama.
The US elections are never an easy affair but Trump and Harris are fighting it on a gendered battlefield.
Ladies and gentlemen, the US elections are becoming Ladies vs Gentlemen.