1. Kory Gill
Gender comm.
11/12/13
Article Review
The article that I am doing is titled In Quinn’s Loss, Questions About Role of Gender and
Sexuality. This article is from The New York Times. The reason why I elected to do this
particular article is because it’s about a women who is gay running for. I figured, especially now
that I am taking gender communication, it would be hard for any woman to get voted into any
sort of office in the government whether it’s a state or federal government office. Bringing in the
fact that the woman, who was running for office is gay, raises more issues for the media to talk
about and voters to decide on. The combination of a woman being gay and running for office
makes an interesting story because she has two issues that may keep her from getting elected.
In this article, twenty-four women, who were in pretty powerful positions, had a meeting
with Christine C. Quinn. The meeting was because the professional ladies were afraid that
Christine wouldn’t have enough votes to become mayor of New York. The professional ladies
warned Christine that women seeking power will always be exposed to danger. Also, the
masculine traits that got Christine this far, such as drive, ambition, and toughness, could have a
negative effect on her in this election. However, Christine didn’t believe she needed to worry
about the fact she was a woman and a lesbian. The fact that Christine went from being the front-
runner to finishing in third in the general election leaves the question did the fact that Christine
did not act feminine or the fact she was gay play any role in her not being able to get elected?
Exit polls suggested she did not lose the election because she was a woman but because her
opponents’ ability to communicate better on issues like the stop-and-frisk policing along with
Christine not being able to be seen in a different light from the previous mayor. Democratic
voters that did not have good views on Christine described her as “petty,” “mean,” “bossy,” and

2. “self-interested.” Some men and women said Christine’s voice was hard to listen to and some
people even admitted they didn’t vote for her because she is a lesbian. Some people in New York
told the media that Christine was too masculine and even some wealthy women that helped
Christine raise money so she could run for mayor asked “why can’t Christine dress better?”
(Kantor, Taylor, 2013)
A term from our book that I can relate to the article is Iron Maiden. An Iron Maiden is a
female professional with masculine traits such as ambition, independent, and toughness.
Christine is a good example of an Iron Maiden because the article talks about how she got into
politics by being “tough”, having drive, and having ambition. All three traits are masculine
which makes Christine an Iron Maiden.
The concept that ties into the article well from the book is the pressure to conform to
femininity. Pressure to conform to femininity is one or more people trying to force a person or a
group of people to act more feminine. A good example of when Christine was pressured to
conform to femininity is when the group of professional women told Christine showing
masculine traits won’t go well with voters. The professional ladies try to reason with Christine
on why she should at least act feminine while running to become mayor of New York.
My last concept I would like to relate to the article from the book is gender bias in
evaluations. Gender bias in evaluations is making a judgment based on a person’s gender. An
example where Christine was judged based on her gender is towards the end of the article where
one of the women who helped Christine raise money to run for mayor said, “Why can’t Christine
dress better?” Somebody asked why Christine is not wearing a size two as well. Christine made
it clear they were judging her based off of her gender by saying “you don’t hear them asking why
Bill don’t buy better suits (Bill was one of the people who ran against her).”

3. The surprising thing in this article is the fact that Christine did not get teased more than
she did for being a lesbian. I don’t think it’s right or fair for people to judge a person based off of
their sexual orientation. However, gay people seem to get discriminated against more than
females do. I say this because in a good amount of states in the USA gays are not allowed to get
married. A person did say they didn’t like Christine because she was gay but it seemed like her
gender played a bigger role on her not getting elected than her being gay based on what most
people were saying about her in the article.
I can’t say I’m surprised that Christine was discriminated against because of her gender. I
already was aware that women were getting discriminated against in politics ever since Hillary
Clinton ran against Obama. People in the mass media were calling her bitches and it even had a
shirt with a picture of Hillary and Obama in the urban area that read “bros before hoes.” I will
stand up against discrimination by educating people about the issue and when I become in top
management one day, I will make sure that there is a good mixture of both males and females in
upper management.

4. Work Cited
Jodi Kantor and Kate Taylor, In Quinn’s Loss, Questions about Role of Gender and Sexuality,
Sep.11, 2013, retrieved from internet on Nov. 7, 2013