[OPINION] From Leni to Kamala, why do female presidentiables keep losing?
If Filipinos are suffering from a severe case of historical amnesia, perhaps it’s because we inherited it from our American colonizers.
At the recently concluded US elections, in a choice between a twice-impeached convicted felon and a female Vice President, the American people have re-elected Donald Trump. He won by a landslide.
Filipinos were quick to draw parallels between Trump’s win and Bongbong Marcos’ return to power during our own national elections in 2022. Our current affairs mirrored each other, as if we needed any more proof that we are a colony of the US. Americans and Filipinos asked the same questions upon the loss of Kamala Harris and Leni Robredo, respectively. How could they have been defeated, when they seemed like the clearly better choice?
The fact that they are women is an obvious explanation—one that many voters, Americans and Filipinos alike, instantly clung to. “Ang totoong moral lesson ay kapag magaling ka pero babae ka, hindi ka mananalo dahil sa misogyny,” one X user posted in response to comparisons between Harris and Robredo. And there is some truth to this, more so for the US, which has never had a female president.
Gender played a central role in the elections beyond one of the candidates being a woman. “Kamala Harris’ campaign also forwarded women’s autonomy over their own bodies, which is particularly poignant in the US political climate where conservative views challenge such autonomy,” Ash Presto, a sociologist from the University of the Philippines Diliman, tells PhilSTAR L!fe.
This is the first election since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark court ruling that recognized abortion as a constitutional right in the US for the past 50 years. Harris promised voters that she would restore reproductive freedoms and veto any national bans on abortion, while condemning Trump’s role in the ruling—Trump often took credit for the loss of the right to abortion after appointing three of the Justices who voted to overturn Roe.
Trump’s campaign, on the other hand, was bolstered by “the resurgence of hegemonic masculinity.” This form of masculinity, Presto explains, “promotes dominant male leadership and traditional gender roles (which) directly countered the progressive, inclusive political stance represented by Harris.” Trump cozied up with the “manosphere,” a network of male influencers and podcasters known to embody and amplify this hegemonic masculinity. Young men disillusioned with their unsatisfying lives are attracted to figures like Andrew Tate, who offers a comforting, though incorrect, explanation: It is all women’s fault.
In an interview with Fox News in August, Trump also said Harris would be like “a play toy” if elected president. “(World leaders) look at her and they say we can’t believe we got so lucky. They’re gonna walk all over her.”
To no one’s surprise, Robredo received similar comments under Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. In 2018, after revealing his health issues, Duterte said he will not give the presidency to Robredo. “She’s very good, she’s gentle, pero mahina talaga si Leni,” he said in a speech. “Hindi mahina ‘yung utak. Pumasa ng bar eh. Mahina sa diskarte.”
Duterte similarly discouraged his own daughter, Sara Duterte, from joining the presidential race in 2022: “Naaawa ako sa dadaanan niya na dinaanan ko. Hindi ito pambabae.”
Both countries have highly patriarchal cultures that are more tolerant of men while holding women to a higher standard. Like how Trump sexualized Harris to discredit her by sharing online posts implying Harris used sexual favors to get ahead as well as how Duterte admitted to looking at Robredo’s legs during meetings and teased about courting her. When called out, Duterte would say he was joking. During Robredo’s presidential campaign, where her three daughters were heavily involved, her eldest was targeted with a fabricated sex tape.
Duterte set the stage for Robredo’s run: Women can be good but never enough to take on a “man’s job,” and no leadership position of any kind can overwrite their role in a man’s world—something to be looked at, to derive sexual pleasure from.
And it seems Filipinos agree. The seventh wave of the World Values Survey, published in 2022, found that more than half of Filipinos believe men make better political leaders than women. This, again, can be attributed to our patriarchal culture, which also explains why female candidates are derogated for being “soft.” Because the Filipinos’ lack of discipline is often blamed for our lack of progress, we believe strongman leaders—authoritative and foul-mouthed, like a strict father—can unite us and bring change. Presto adds that the losses of Harris and Robredo “illustrate how male dominance is often portrayed as a stabilizing force against the perceived risks of female leadership.” After all, who would want to be represented by a play toy?
That said, Presto reminds us that gender, while critical, was not the sole determining factor in the results of both the US and Philippine elections. “Pressing issues like inflation and the economy were critical in shaping voter behavior in the US. These concerns also underpinned much of the support for the Trump campaign.” According to exit polls, the economy was the issue that mattered most for 32% of voters, whereas abortion was top for only 14% (the state of democracy was the top priority of the majority, at 34%).
The polls also show that 73% of voters—more than half of which are Republicans—are “dissatisfied or angry” with the way things are in the US today. While many experts project that Trump’s economic platforms, like imposing a tariff on all imports, will not reduce inflation but worsen it, it appears Americans trust Trump to correct the mistakes of Joe Biden’s administration. While Harris had plans for an “opportunity economy,” where housing and healthcare would be more affordable and minimum wage would be raised, she had the additional struggle of uncoupling herself from Biden’s highly disapproved term; a struggle she failed to overcome when she said she would not change anything about Biden’s leadership.
Disparities in access to education and information, Presto adds, is another notable factor that could drive electoral outcomes, with both elections occurring in the age of rampant disinformation.
Dr. Jonathan Corpus Ong, disinformation researcher and founder of independent thinktank SIGLA Research, says Trump’s campaign strategies are not new. “Similar to Marcos skipping accountability interviews in legacy media platforms, Trump spent countless hours with podcasters and influencers in alternative platforms,” he tells L!fe. “Listening to Trump with Joe Rogan, a different side of him comes through. It’s less Trump the outrageous demagogue, but a nostalgic Trump that reflects on his childhood, family, and darker personal struggles.”
“In our 2022 study Parallel Public Spheres, one of our arguments about the uniqueness of the 2022 Philippines race was it exposed how legacy media had lost its traditional hold of the political center when Marcos completely snubbed the ritual of the televised political debate that is meant to be the center from which society talks through its issues. This argument now holds for the US in the conduct of the 2024 electoral race.”
While a large part of Harris’ campaign involved participating in online trends and subcultures, like “Brat Summer,” she was unable to leverage these alternative platforms as well as Trump. Joe Rogan, who hosts the most popular podcast in the US, invited both Trump and Harris, but only the former went on to appear on the show.
Trump’s messaging was also very intentional. Dr. Ong adds, “Similar to Marcos’ campaign uses of ‘false victimhood performances,’ Trump savvily positioned himself as a victim of Democrats’ legal and media persecution. Trump implied that he had been subject to liberal elites’ censorship by having him de-platformed off social media and bad faith litigation and accountability initiatives.”
“This positioning is strategic and successful: In spite of actually being a former President, he came off as the underdog and agent of change—which is exactly the kind of leader that a disgruntled American public wants right now.”
This is reminiscent of rhetoric shared by Marcos’ supporters in 2022, reframing his frequent absences in public debates as a sign of humility and not wanting to fight back.
There are, of course, vastly differing contexts that further complicate Harris’ and Robredo’s presidential bids. Presto explains, “In the Philippines, Robredo had to navigate a political landscape deeply entrenched in local patronage systems, which shape voter loyalty and often resist progressive leadership styles that threaten the status quo. In contrast, Harris dealt with the complexities of US foreign policy and its global implications, alongside the domestic intersections of race and gender. Her role was scrutinized not just on domestic terms but also on how it reflected America's stance and reliability on the international stage.”
Presto notes that the Philippines previously electing female presidents does not necessarily guarantee that we are more open to doing it again, “especially when past female presidents conformed to the dominant framework of elite families in the country.”
“We saw how gendered the attacks and disinformation were against Robredo. We saw how, even today, hypermasculine tropes still get invoked to win votes. Sara Duterte, for example, who is touted as a presidential contender in the 2028 elections, is invoking these aggressive posturing associated with her father's hypermasculine administration.”
It is also incredibly dangerous to associate womanhood with an inherent goodness—female political leaders are not progressive by virtue of their gender. Outside the outcomes of their respective presidential bids, Harris and Robredo could not be any more different. Harris, as Biden’s Vice President, is the second-in-command in providing weapons to Israel’s genocide in Palestine, something she still failed to address in her presidential run. As authors Cinzia Arruzza, Nancy Fraser, and Tithi Bhattacharya write in the book Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto, elite “progressives” invite women to identify with and vote for female politicians, to celebrate their ascent to power even if it means suffering blows to our liberation.
They add, “There is nothing feminist about ruling class women who are doing the dirty work of bombing other countries; of backing neocolonial interventions in the name of humanitarianism while remaining silent about the genocides perpetrated by their own governments.”
While it is undeniable that misogyny is alive and well and has had a hand in the recent US elections, our own history shows us that women are just as capable of corruption, election-rigging, and inhumane policies. As we head to the polls for our own midterm elections next year, may we elect public servants who will enact actual change—not a gender-bent version of the exploitative status quo.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of PhilSTAR L!fe, its parent company and affiliates, or its staff.