Gender and Elections

President Joe Biden gave his first address to Congress on April 28, 2021. He stood at the center of the US House rostrum, with two women seated behind him: Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Biden began his speech by recognizing the historic moment of which he was part: “Madam Speaker, Madam Vice President. No president has ever said those words from this podium.” He added, “And it’s about time.” Biden was right. Never before 2021 had a woman served as vice president (and thus president of the Senate), nor had the first and only woman Speaker of the House – Nancy Pelosi – sat next to another woman during a presidential address to Congress. But it is the full picture of that moment, including Biden’s position at the podium as yet another white, male president of the United States, that captures the complexities of gender in the US elections in the early decades of the twenty-first century.