Interested in both social equality and last year’s presidential candidates, we chose a topic that would allow us to analyze their crossover.
We defined the focus of our analysis as follows:
“The comparison of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, their handling of social issues (women's rights and sexual equality in particular) and how those issues were framed using the candidates's experiences as context.”
We focused primarily on the sexual and gender equality and secondarily on the candidate exploited to illustrate (literally) the point. We felt, however, that it was important to discuss both – it was through the candidate and their actions in last year’s election that the cartoonist was able to capitalize on the opportunity to bring lasting attention to these important social issues.
Initially, we planned to focus solely on cartoons that included Obama and/or Romney regarding issues of sexual minorities. However, we struggled to find enough cartoons without too much message repetition, so we included matter of women’s rights and equality for the sake of interest, originality and quality.
Initially, we planned to focus solely on cartoons that included Obama and/or Romney regarding issues of sexual minorities. However, we struggled to find enough cartoons without too much message repetition, so we included matter of women’s rights and equality for the sake of interest, originality and quality.
Social issues dominated discussions leading up to the November 6th election. An article from the Huffington Post (2/12/12) titled "Social Issues Retake U.S. Politics, 2012 Elections" compares the social issue resurgence to the "culture wars of the 1990s" and leads with:
A sampling of the hot topics related to women’s issues:
"All of a sudden, abortion, contraception and gay marriage are at the center of American political discourse, with the struggling - though improving - economy pushed to the background."For many voters, social issues alone determined their allegiance. In response, the candidates spent a significant amount of time catering to their socially-conscious voters. But it leads one to ask -- why were social issues so front and center during the election in the first place?
A sampling of the hot topics related to women’s issues:
- The government feuded with church-affiliated health institutions over providing birth control that coincided with their beliefs. [source]
- The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation cut off donations to Planned Parenthood and was torched by the public. They later reversed their decision. [source]
- Former Missouri Rep. Todd Akin said that pregnancy rarely occurs after a "legitimate rape." [source]
- Romney referred to having "binders full of women" (when talking about job applicants) at one of the presidential debates. The remark quickly turned into an internet sensation. [source]
A sampling of the hot topics related to sexual equality:
- In early 2012, a California court threw out Proposition 8, an amendment that passed in 2008 declaring that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid in California.” [source]
- President Obama reversed his position on gay marriage last May, saying, “I had hesitated on gay marriage, in part, because I thought civil unions would be sufficient," the president said. "I was sensitive to the fact that -- for a lot of people -- that the word marriage is something that provokes very powerful traditions and religious beliefs.” [source] [source]
- Gay marriage was on the ballot in four states: Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. [source]
Introduction
During our search for cartoons that feature same-sex marriage, we noticed that nearly every single one we found was illustrated in support of the act, despite the fact that most polls dictate that nearly 40 percent of Americans think same-sex marriage should be illegal and just over 50 percent think it should be legal. We did not perform an intensive content analysis of any sort, but it struck us all as noteworthy.
Furthermore, we struggled to find cartoons that showcased Romney in a positive light alongside a social issue. To put it simply, Romney seemed to be the butt of 95 percent of the "jokes." In the same vein, we had a hard time finding negative representations of Obama when paired with a social issue. It was not a particularly surprising revelation, but interesting nonetheless. In an attempt to prevent the appearance of bias, we spent a significant amount of time looking for more positive cartoons of Romney and more negative cartoons of Obama, but it did not take long to realize that by doing so we would have inadvertently done what we were trying to avoid. It is simply the reality of the issues' nature.
Key Findings
Throughout our research of gender and sexual equality issues in today's politics, particularly regarding Obama and Romney during the presidential election, we learned a lot and found a few general ideas that seemed to appear in a lot of our findings.
- These two particular topics are two topics that the 2012 presidential candidates stood firm on and built a lot of their arguments around.
- Sexual equality is held in a very high regard not only in a political sense, but in a general sense within our country.
- The cartoonists, who do represent the public, tends to favor Obama over Romney.
- With Obama's acceptance of same sex marriage and growing societal support, sexual equality is a far bigger issue than many suspect it to be.
- We gathered that these cartoons represented many American's beliefs and ideas on specific issues, so through the eyes of the cartoonists, we can get a sense of where public opinion lies.
- There is a lot of public divide on both issues and candidates. People see Obama's favoring for the LGBT community to be something of a historical moment and change, while others see it as a cover up for other mainstream political issues.
- The war on women's rights is better then ever. Seven out of the eight cartoons coded regarding women's rights were supportive and held women's rights in a positive light.
