Mrs. Bad Astronomy has written a guest post on her husband’s blog (h/t Science After Sunclipse) concerning the media’s tendency to refer to Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as simply “Hillary”. The conclusion drawn is that this represents, either consciously or unconsciously, some sexism on the part of the media. Referring to a Presidential candidate by her first name, in this view, is an indirect way of minimizing her importance and her seriousness.
A number of commenters on the post more or less dismissed this opinion because Clinton herself uses the campaign slogan, “Hillary for President.” In the commenters’ view, Hillary wants… erm, Hillary Clinton wants to be referred to by her first name, and the media is simply going along with this.
I suspect there’s some truth to the latter view, but I also don’t doubt that there’s some sexism, albeit probably unintentional, going on. I have some anecdotal evidence from academia that supports this.
