If you think Beto is 'born to do it' and Kamala is a 'great VP for Joe', you need to change your attitude. And fast

Let's talk about the sexist assumptions surrounding the Democratic candidates for 2020

Beto has apologised for kicking off his campaign with a Vanity Fair cover that said he was 'just born to be in it' (Getty Images)

The 2020 election should be hailed as historic, because it is. Of the 23 Democrats currently in the running, six are female, with frontrunners like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris working hard to lay out their platforms to the public. But a quick glance at the headlines paints a very different, unbalanced picture. We see female candidates still taking a back seat to their male opponents all too often. Beto O'Rourke landed a (controversial) splashy Vanity Fair cover in March to kick off his campaign, and not even two weeks ago, a smiling Pete Buttigieg posed with his husband on the cover of Time, compete with the headline “First Family.” And, of course, Joe Biden is still ahead in the polls.

No female candidate (yet) has landed a magazine cover. Instead, female candidates seem to be up against something far more sinister than politics itself: the relatability factor.

Take Kamala Harris, for example, a candidate who people keep saying would make a great vice president. Her husband posted this photo for Mother’s Day on Twitter. The photo shows a smiling Harris wearing an apron and pearls and “rushing home between LA events” to cook a Mother’s Day meal. Sure, we can assume it was intended was meant to be a sweet tribute to his wife, but that doesn’t mean that we should ignore the expectation that women who want to be politicians should first prove they aren’t neglecting their “real work” at home.

When was the last time a reporter asked Beto O'Rourke how he manages to do it all? Instead, he told us in Vanity Fair that he was “born to be in it” — politics, that is — and during his first speech as a presidential candidate in Iowa, he mentioned how he “sometimes” helps raise his children with wife Amy.

While he’s since appeared on The View this week and said he regrets the unintentional flaunting of privilege the Vanity Fair cover seemed to show, the magazine’s editor-in-chief Radhika Jones has pushed back. “I mean, he did say it. And I have felt actually it is clear what he meant,” Jones told CNN.

It’s reassuring to see a male candidate come under criticism for the comment, but imagine the uproar if a woman, moments after declaring her candidacy, announced she was “born to do it”.

Yes, it is revolutionary to see so many women candidates fo 2020 — but until they receive equal coverage, they may as well not be there. When women are used merely to bolster a man’s ticket or ignored entirely when a man hits the stage, there is no progress. After rumors abounded this week about the possibility of Biden “balancing his ticket” with Harris, I was glad to see her tell voters in New Hampshire that her male counterpart “would be a great running-mate. As vice president, he’s shown he can do the job.” I hope the sentiment goes beyond a soundbite.

History professor Claire Bond Potter recently asked in the New York Times: “What would it mean if we could reinvent what it is that makes a candidate ‘likeable'? What if women no longer tried to fit a standard that was never meant for them and instead, we focused on redefining what likeability might look like: not someone you want to get a beer with, but, say, someone you can trust to do the work?”

That future just might be the one where women can come out ahead. Let’s hope America is listening.