During the second presidential debate in October of 2016, Donald Trump followed Hillary Clinton around the stage as she spoke. It was a primitive intimidation tactic, used to assert power and unnerve Hillary. In an excerpt from her book What Happened Hillary opens up about the hard choice she faced. Should she continue on as if nothing was happening, or turn and tell Trump “Back up, you creep, get away from me”? As we know she chose the first response but Hillary confesses to wondering if she should have gone with the second.
Women often face similar situations of intimidation, and the dilemma is always the same. Jill Filipovic of the New York Times astutely discusses this issue in her article, “Donald Was a Creep. Too Bad Hillary Couldn’t Say It”. She asserts that most women respond like Hillary when faced with harassment or intimidation: they ignore it. But there is a debate that goes on in their minds – “would it have been better if I had challenged or called out the behaviour”. The dilemma for women is that by challenging the behaviour, they often suffer penalties or sanctions; they are judged as unpleasant, aggressive or less competent. They are seen as the woman who complains.
The two choices raised, ignore or challenge, reflect the two classic responses to conflict – flight or fight. Although there is no perfect way to respond to harassment or intimidation, having a larger range of possible responses is a huge advantage. It provides more tools and more flexibility to a woman in a difficult situation. In this blog, I use this very dramatic public example of Donald Trump’s attempt at intimidation to highlight several of the counter tactics to gender bias I discuss in my new book, Understanding Gender at Work.
Naming, Questioning and Correcting
These three techniques are used to counter competitive tactics in negotiation. They also work well with harassment and intimidation because the underlying aims are the same: to move psychologically against the target, to get the target rattled and to exert power. In the debate situation, Hillary could have exposed the move by simply turning around and laughing at him. She did not need to name it – everyone saw what it was. By turning and laughing (or just smiling), she would have shown that she recognized the game and was amused by it. Not rattled, amused. The tense crowd would most likely have laughed with her.
She might have gone further and questioned it: “Do you think creeping around like that will intimidate me?” She could have added a laugh and then continued on with the debate, showing she recognised the tactic but dismissed it. Or she might have corrected it by saying in a light tone, “Creeping around behind me does not intimidate me. In fact, it seems like pretty childish behaviour.” By treating Trump as a subordinate and pointing out how childish his behaviour was, she would have shown her power.
Humour
The best counter tactic, but also the trickiest to get right, is humour. It was illustrated brilliantly during another presidential debate between Bush and Gore in 2000. In this particular debate, Gore moved suddenly toward Bush as Bush began to speak. Bush kept on talking, but responded with a very comical nod. The crowd laughed. Gore’s attempt at intimidation, if that’s what it was, lost its power with that one simple, non-verbal move. Hillary could have achieved the same reaction with her debate crowd as Bush did just by turning and looking at Trump with a smile. Or she could have looked at him, and then turned to the crowd, rolling her eyes. With these responses, she would have shown that she was aware and in control, and as a bonus she would have connected with the crowd over Trump’s boorish and inappropriate behaviour.
Helping Others
In the debate, if the moderators had stepped in and admonished Trump for creeping around, it would have unburdened Hillary from having to think about or deal with his behaviour. Put simply, “if you see something, say something”. Step in and help defend others when they are subject to microaggressions – such as interruptions or idea stealing. Set ground rules for meetings to prevent them. Plan the phrases you will use to deal with common situations of harassment. Know that by saying something or preventing harassment from happening, you unburden others and help them to shine. Social intelligence at its finest. If you want to know the phrases you can use, see my new book and Jessica Bennett’s The Feminist Fight Club.
My aim in this blog is not to second guess Hillary Clinton, or to suggest she should have done anything differently. She won all of the debates. And there is no flawless response in the face of harassment. Instead, my aim is to show that there is a larger range of responses available to women to expose, reduce, and deal with harassment beyond ignore or fight.