“You spent a f---ing week on pneumonia-gate” Presented by CuriosityStream

RULING THE WEEK

The news of Senator Bernie Sanders’ heart attack has made headlines, sure. But compared to the relentless media reports about Hillary Clinton’s near fainting-spell in 2016, brought on by pneumonia, the coverage of Sanders’ health problems has been light.

There are differences, of course. Clinton, who was 68 at the time, was the Democratic nominee. Sanders, 78, is still in the primary. But some people also suspect there’s a sexist double standard at work: Veterans of the Clinton campaign have been exchanging text messages this week, wryly reminiscing about how much attention the pneumonia incident got back in 2016, fueled by speculation, especially in conservative media, that Clinton was hiding larger health problems. (Sanders waited three days to disclose that he’d had a heart attack.)


“[Press secretary] Brian Fallon and I spent eight full days on pneumonia-gate … It was one of the hardest weeks of the entire campaign, just trying to dig out from it,” recalls Jennifer Palmieri, who was director of communications for the Clinton 2016 presidential campaign. “I just want to be like, ‘Hey, national media, you spent a f---ing week on pneumonia gate two months before America elected Donald Trump president of the United States. OK? That’s what you did.’”

“I did hear from a lot of reporters who texted me just to be like, ‘Why isn’t Bernie’s heart attack a bigger deal?’” Palmieri told me. “I’m like ‘I don’t know, you’re, like, in the press, you should be making it a big deal.’”

Why was Clinton hit so hard when the coverage of Sanders’ illness has been relatively light? At the root of the Clinton campaign’s problems “was always suspicion about her motivations … suspicion that she’s hiding something, she’s trying to get away with something,” says Palmieri. “That’s what I felt this pneumonia-gate was about.”

Palmieri suspects there’s a gendered motivation behind the “she’s hiding something” line. “I believe that was a reaction to our collective unease with women and ambition,” she says. “I think it’s because she was always stepping a little outside of the role that women have traditionally been in.”

“On the surface it looks like sexism — what people perceive a women's health and energy level should be on the campaign trail,” adds Adrienne Elrod, who was a spokesperson for Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

Both former aides admitted their conjectures about misogyny were informed hunches — “It’s not like I’ve got a scientific study,” Palmieri told me. But Ryan Neville-Shepard, assistant professor of communication at the University of Arkansas, and Jaclyn Nolan, a lecturer in communications at the University of Georgia, did study pneumonia-gate. Their paper , “‘She Doesn’t Have the Stamina’: Hillary Clinton and the Hysteria Diagnosis in the 2016 Presidential Election,” tracked how the coverage of the fainting incident (and a coughing fit a week earlier) traveled from the conservative blogosphere into the mainstream media — and concludes that Clinton suffered from sexist double standards related to women’s health and leadership.

The authors argue that the public turned Clinton’s health problems into a sign not just of poor health, but of bad character. This phenomenon, called kakoethos, is much more likely to affect women than men.

“When people question Donald Trump’s health because he has high cholesterol, he can put on this whack-a-doodle doctor … to give him the cleanest bill of health that’s ever, ever, ever existed, and we just sort of laugh it off,” says Neville-Shepard. But for women faced with a health question, “no matter what they say, if they want secrecy in the moment because it’s a personal matter, they’re going to be attacked. If they speak about their health, nobody’s going to trust them. It’s disabling because no matter what they do, they can’t get out of that moment.”

Nolan notes that while Sanders’ heart attack has morphed into a discussion about public health, with headlines repeating the candidate’s claim that he was “dumb” not to listen to his body, Clinton’s health problems “became this question about not only does she have the stamina, but also that her character is bad.”

“Women are so often second-guessed as arbiter of their own bodies,” Nolan says, “and then when they [try] to be, like in the case of Clinton, she’s all the more punished for it.”

Happy Friday and welcome to Women Rule! Keep an eye out: The Supreme Court began a high-stakes term this week. It will decide landmark cases on abortion and whether employers can fire workers for their sexual orientation or gender identity. Stay up to date by signing up to the newsletter here .

Maya Parthasarathy brings you the What Rulers Are Reading section this week. Send us your thoughts at [email protected] .

2020 WATCH -- Four women will be on the Democratic primary debate stage next week: Sens. Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. That’s a new record for the number of women in a primary debate, says Gender on The Ballot’s Amanda Hunter.

-- “Elizabeth Warren Details Her Account of Losing Teaching Job Because of Pregnancy” by Thomas Kaplan: “It is one of Elizabeth Warren’s signature anecdotes in her stump speech: By the end of her first year as a public-school teacher, she was ‘visibly pregnant,’ and the principal wished her luck and hired another teacher to replace her.

“In recent days, a conservative news site and other outlets have cited evidence that challenges her account, including past remarks by Ms. Warren in which she did not mention being forced to leave the school and minutes from a school board meeting showing that her contract was initially extended for the next school year.

“Ms. Warren is now pushing back against any suggestion that she has misrepresented the circumstances of her departure, and pointing to the discrimination that many pregnant women have faced on the job.” NYT … “County Records Contradict Warren’s Claim She Was Fired Over Pregnancy” Free Beacon … “Conservatives claim Elizabeth Warren lied about pregnancy firing. Women reality-checked them on social media.” by Eli Rosenberg WaPo

-- “Harris proposes six months of government-paid family leave” by Ian Kullgren: “Harris’ proposal would provide every worker in America six months of paid family and medical leave — double what even the most fervent supporters of paid leave in Congress have pushed for. The plan represents a shift for Harris herself, who earlier in the campaign supported legislation for three months of paid leave.” POLITICO

NEW WOMEN RULE PODCAST -- Anna sat down with former U.N Ambassador Susan Rice, who has a new memoir out, “ Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For ”… Highlights:

-- Lessons from her parents: “‘Don’t let those barriers stop you, at least mentally.’ There may be somebody who denies you X, Y or Z because you’re black or you’re a woman or whatever, but the pernicious aspect of racism they taught us was to let the bigotry get in your own head so that you start to doubt yourself.”

-- The time she flipped off Richard Holbrook during meeting: “He was insulting and demeaning, and he was trying to put me down in front of these older career ambassadors that … I had to work with. … It culminated in me quietly, without words, just raising my middle finger and making sure that I left it up there long enough for him to see it. … [After the meeting] when I called [Secretary of State Madeleine Albright] up, I said, ‘Madame Secretary, I wanted to tell you what just happened,’ and she said, ‘Well, tell me the whole story.’ I told her the story, and she goes in words to the effect of, ‘You go, girl!’”

-- The time Trump hugged her: “[In 2015 at the White House Correspondents Dinner] from behind me comes this hulking man, and literally kind of lifts me up out of the chair. And I turn around, and I recognized him. Obviously, it’s Donald Trump. And he grabs me and hugs me. … He whispered this into my ear. ‘I want you to know you were treated very unfairly over Benghazi.’”

TWEET OF THE WEEK --

#METOO LATEST -- Ronan Farrow, one of the reporters who broke the Havey Weinstein allegations, has a new book out next week, “ Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators .” … Among the revelations:



NBC News employee Brooke Nevils accuses former “Today Show” host Matt Lauer of rape at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Lauer says the claim of assault “is categorically false." Variety

A look inside the Israeli private-intelligence agency Weinstein hired to spy on Farrow other journalists and the women who told their stories of alleged sexual assault to those reporters. The New Yorker

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Members of the Washington Mystics celebrate after defeating the Connecticut Sun to win the 2019 WNBA Finals. | Rob Carr/Getty Images

WHAT RULERS ARE READING

HIDDEN COSTS -- “The cost of leaving an abusive relationship” by Ashley Powers: “An abuser doesn’t just beat his victim, he disables her car so she misses work. He surveils her spending. He refuses to get a job but gambles away her paycheck. Many domestic violence cases have an element of what researchers call economic abuse, or attacks on a victim’s self-sufficiency. At every income level, this can make it harder to escape, to establish independence.

“When she fled, Mary and her husband had been together about three years. They had a 2-year-old son. (She also had two children from previous relationships.) She had no job, no money, no car, and seemingly no way out. By contrast, Samantha was the breadwinner in her 15-year marriage, with a lucrative job at a tech company. But that didn’t make it easier to leave with their 1-year-old daughter. Had her husband gotten a whiff of her plans, she said, ‘He would kill me.’” California Sunday Magazine

AROUND THE WORLD -- “‘A Caricature of the Patriarchy’: Argentine Feminists Remake Tango,” by Ernesto Londoño: “[Liliana] Furió started renting venues for the event earlier this year, calling it La Furiosa — or the livid woman. It’s part of a push by Argentine feminists to make tango less patriarchal. In traditional tango, men invite women to dance through a subtle head-jolt gesture known as a cabeceo, often signaled from across the room. On the dance floor, the man asserts control in a sequence of moves, often fast-paced, jolting and limb-entangling, that range from teasingly sensual to uncomfortably domineering. …

“In July the group published a protocol to make tango halls less dogmatic about traditional gender roles and more assertive about rooting out sexual harassment and assault. The protocol provides suggested guidelines for tango venue organizers, including acceptance of couples who depart from heteronormative roles. It also offers guidance on how to handle instances of harassment and abuse, advising, for instance, that men accused of acting inappropriately on the dance floor be asked to leave. ‘Tango is a reflection of what is happening in our culture, and for a long time our culture has allowed men to touch you when they want to and if you complain you’re dismissed as crazy,’ Ms. [Victoria] Beytia said.” NYT

-- “Thousands Of Women Will At Last Be Allowed To Attend A Soccer Match In Iran” NPR … “Women are slapped, forcibly treated, abused during childbirth, report on 4 countries finds” NBC News

WHY IS THIS EVEN A THING? -- “Cuomo signs law banning pelvic exams on unconsenting women,” by Bethany Bump: “New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation Monday requiring medical officials to obtain a patient’s consent before subjecting them to a pelvic exam while unconscious or under anesthesia. The legislation, which takes effect in April 2020, makes it professional misconduct to perform an unauthorized pelvic exam. ...

“New York is one of roughly a dozen states that moved to outlaw unauthorized pelvic examinations this year in response to long-held concerns about a lack of patient consent. For many years, medical students have practiced pelvic exams on women under anesthesia as part of their educational training. But the practice, which involves inserting fingers into the vagina to feel the uterus and ovaries, is often done without the patient's knowledge or consent.” Albany Times Union

-- “Why Are Pelvic Exams on Unconscious, Unconsenting Women Still Part of Medical Training?” by Phoebe Friesen: “Interestingly, research shows that while first-year medical students largely find the idea of practicing pelvic exams on women under anesthetic to be morally problematic, the longer they spend in medical school, the less they see it as an issue. … Unsurprisingly, 100 percent of women say they would prefer to be asked before their pelvis is used as a teaching tool.” Slate

MAKING MOVES -- “New Study Says Women Feel Increasingly Unequal — But Are Mobilizing More Than Ever,” via Refinery29

LIGHTBULB MOMENT -- “Women diagnosed with dementia late because they're better at some memory tests, study says,” by Ryan W. Miller: “Doctors may be not be diagnosing women as early as men with brain problems associated with early signs of dementia because of how well women typically perform on simple memory tests, a study published Wednesday suggests.

“Women generally perform better on verbal memory tests, according to the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Neurology. So when these common tests are used to diagnose mild cognitive impairment, women may be under-diagnosed or diagnosed too late while men may be over-diagnosed or diagnosed too early, the study found.” USA Today

LETTER FROM HOLLYWOOD -- “Brie Larson Says Marvel Women Have ‘Passionately’ Told Kevin Feige They Want All-Female Movie” Variety

THE FUTURE IS FEMALE -- “Delta flies 120 girls to NASA with all-women crew to celebrate Girls in Aviation Day” via Fox 5

HISTORY DEPT. -- “Women were playing football in the 1930s — then came the backlash” by Natalie Weiner: “‘A fortnight ago in Los Angeles, those romantics who still believe in nursery rhymes and the dignity of womanhood got a rude shock,’ LIFE Magazine brayed in a November 1939 issue. The shock in question came from a new Southern Californian league of what papers around the country had taken to calling ‘girl gridders’: women playing tackle football, apparently without sugar, spice and everything nice. In the case of the Stars, the Amazons and the Rinky Dinks (really), they were playing in front of thousands. ...

“There had been women football players prior to those who rose to minor acclaim in the late 1930s, and there would be more after them. But the institutional rejection of women’s participation in football at this particular juncture illustrates an important point: women have only ever gotten banned from sports after first playing them. The idea that women are incapable of equal participation is only ever made explicit after they have … equally participated.” SB Nation

WOMEN RULERS

JUST ANNOUNCED: WOMEN RULE SUMMIT -- Changing culture means changing leadership and today we’ve reached a tipping point. More women are in elected office, leading corporations and rising to the top. On the eve of 2020, how do women continue to harness this momentum and propel this generational shift forward? POLITICO is thrilled to announce our 2019 Women Rule Summit — a full day of empowering discussions, high-impact networking and real talk with transformative women. Learn more about the Summit here.

TRANSITIONS -- Tina Tchen will be head of Time's Up. She previously was chief of staff to former first lady Michelle Obama and is a co-founder of the Time’s Up legal defense fund. … Jasmine Gripper has been tapped to become the new executive director of the public education advocacy group Alliance for Quality Education. ...

-- House Appropriations Chairwoman Rep. Nita Lowey announced she’ll retire in 2020. There’s speculation that Chelsea Clinton might run for the seat. … Brooke Oberwetter, former manager of public policy at Facebook, is now head of community affairs at Amazon.

SPOTTED at a “Women on the Rise Event” at Heather Podesta's house, celebrating the next generation of women leaders: Kimberley Fritts, Rhonda Foxx, Tiffany Cross, Maria Teresa Kumar, Bianca Ortiz Wertheim, Laura Rodriguez, Tonya Brasher, Tricia Russell. (h/t Playbook)

WISDOM OF THE WEEK -- Myrtle Potter, Vant Operating Chair of Roivant Pharma: “If you want a fulfilling career, focus on solving important problems for society. My passion is working to address challenges that patients encounter in our healthcare system, particularly in the development and delivery of innovative medicines. A commitment to the needs of others has kept me focused and motivated and has facilitated both my career success and happiness.” Connect with Myrtle here.

IMPACT PARTNER CONTENT -- Women like Susan Wright, Phoebe Waterman Haas and Sally Ride changed the world — but their names often pass unrecognized. This Ada Lovelace Day, the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative hosted a Wikipedia edit-a-thon at the National Air and Space Museum to celebrate the long history of women in aviation, space and STEM. Volunteers worked with museum experts and Wikimedia mentors to amplify the stories of female scientists, pilots, engineers, astronauts and more. Participants created 19 new pages, added 107 new references about women and 13,400 words about women in STEM. Learn more here.

Women Rule is produced by POLITICO in partnership with our founding partners, Google and the Tory Burch Foundation. To learn more visit Women Rule and #RuleWithUs on social.

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