Do you vote based on gender?

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]ender is an ever-present topic in politics, but this summer seemed to show that the media deems a woman’s sex enough to warrant both a vote for or against her.
To vote, or not vote, for a candidate based on their sex totally cheapens them as a politician, as it detracts from their campaign, their policies, but most importantly their standing as a politician.
In the Labour leadership election this summer, there were two male and two female candidates running; this in itself was not made much of by the media.
However, the Telegraph reported in August that “Helen Goodman, an MP supporting Mrs Cooper, who is married to the ex-MP Ed Balls and has three children, said her candidate would make a better leader because she is a mother.”

It would be illogical for a socialist member of the Labour party to have voted for Liz Kendall, the Blairite candidate, as their vote would be based on Kendall’s sex, not her policies.

In this case, the media was not only telling people to vote for someone based on their sex, but telling people what type of woman would make the best leader!
It would be illogical for a socialist member of the Labour party to have voted for Liz Kendall, the Blairite candidate, as their vote would be based on Kendall’s sex, not her policies.
This kind of vote is tokenising, and seems to be a step backwards for gender equality in politics.
The campaign of Hillary Clinton in America for the Democrat’s presidential nomination seems to have been plagued in a similar way, using sex as both a reason for and against voting for her.
Clinton was interviewed over the summer by Ellen DeGeneres, who suggested that it was time for America to have a female President, implying that this should be the reason to vote for her. Another argument used by some media outlets is that having a female President would be a step forward for equality.
While this is true in some respects, surely it would be a stronger move for equality to have a President who has always supported equal rights acts such as the legalisation of gay marriage, like Bernie Sanders?

the media will very often spend more time worrying about hair than the fact that we’re the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people. – Bernie Sanders

Again, to use Clinton’s sex as a reason to vote for her detracts from serious issues which would be more important during a presidency than the President’s sex.
In an interview quoted in the Washington Post, Ana Cox asked Bernie Sanders whether he thought it was fair that Clinton’s hair received more scrutiny in the media than his. He replied, “When the media worries about what Hillary’s hair looks like or what my hair looks like, that’s a real problem. We have millions of people who are struggling to keep their heads above water, who want to know what candidates can do to improve their lives, and the media will very often spend more time worrying about hair than the fact that we’re the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people.”
Sanders hits the nail on the head here. No matter who wins the Democratic nomination, I hope it is on the strength of their policies and their ideologies, not because they had good hair.