A spine of steel and a heart of gold: newspaper coverage of the first female Speaker of the House

Abstract

Literature shows that politics remains associated with maleness in the American cultural discourse. For a female to be elected to office, she must balance common archetypical masculine characteristics that represent strong and capable leadership, with the nurturing expected of women. An in-depth qualitative analysis of Nancy Pelosi's news coverage in five major US dailies confirms these stereotypes. Portrayed as ‘very strong’ and ‘decisive’, the Speaker ‘knows what she wants’. But the woman with ‘the spine of steel’ also possesses a ‘heart of gold’. She is a mother of five and a grandmother of six, and, of course, wears Armani suits. The tension between the two opposite personalities – one predominantly ‘masculine’ and the other clearly ‘feminine’ – characterizes the coverage of the country's first female Speaker and reveals the implications of gendered news coverage on the way Pelosi is perceived as leader. The newspapers examined include the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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