Kamala Harris is striking back for the sake of her campaign – and women around the world

In recent days, Vice President Harris has done the same flooded the airwavesappearing on a long list of high-profile and non-traditional media platforms to spread her message to voters across the country. In every appearance of Fox News to a syndicated radio host Charlemagne is God, she has smartly and emphatically hit back, directly and indirectly, against former President Trump and the attacks and smears mercilessly hurled at her from the right.

It is both the right time and the right strategy. As the first woman of color to run for president, Harris has already faced enormous odds double standard in expectations, and an absurdly high bar compared to her opponent. But history and research show that the only way to break the double standard that female candidates face is to fearlessly fight back.

Renowned gender and politics researcher Celinda Lake has studied this question in depthas well other researchers working to support women’s political participation here and there all over the world. They found that in most cases, clap back directly, calmly, and forcefully at perpetrators of sexist attacks positively changes public perception of women running for office. It makes them look strong and unintimidated. And most importantly, research has shown that women can look weak if they don’t respond.

According to a study by the Barbara Lee Foundation“There has long been a misconception that silence is a strong response when women experience sexism – this research suggests otherwise. Ignoring or being seen to turn a blind eye to serious incidents of sexism could potentially result in a backlash against female candidates as voters want to see strength and backbone.” Going to the top, as Michelle Obama once emphasized, is not an option.

For good reason. Since President Biden stepped aside as Democratic candidate, All together, the national, nonpartisan organization for women’s social and political education that I founded has followed examples of this racist and sexist attacks Harris. Since the beginning of 2024, and especially since the launch of her candidacy, they have exploded online.

There have been 170,000 unique individual public posts (excluding replies and shares) on Twitter/X, Instagram and TikTok containing racist and/or sexist attacks against her, causing 8.86 billion impressions. There have also been hundreds of AI-generated deepfake attacks. The sheer scale of these horrific attacks will surely help shape and distort public perception of her, just like her influenced the perception of Hillary Clinton in 2016.

While the attacks come from different sources including foreign actors working to disrupt the election, former President Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, contributed significantly. Most pernicious in the attack line are the claims that she is not a serious person, that she has mental deficiencies and that she has used sex to advance her career. Just a few days ago, Trump called her a “retard.” A libel that is deeply offensive for a long list of reasons.

Of course, such smears against female candidates are not unique to Harris; they have become an all-too-common campaign tactic everywhere. Research shows that worldwide cases of gender-related disinformation and attacks against women running for elected office have exploded in scope and impact, driven largely by autocratic leaders who often rise by marginalizing women’s political power. As a result, many women in the US and all over the world have chosen to leave their race or politics behind altogether rather than face attacks that can be violent, frightening and dangerous in nature.

As I have worked to bring more women into the political process over the past decade and served in local elected office myself, I have seen how such attacks can have a profoundly negative effect on public perception of women leaders.

At one point during my elected term, social media threats against me and my children were so serious that police were stationed outside my home. Women who could have been great candidates saw what I was going through and chose not to run. It may be a reason why in 2024, after years of progress, Fewer women are walking for office.

However, Harris is benefiting from the lessons learned by others and, frankly, from the mistakes made by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. In 2016, social media was awash with sexist smears and disinformation about Clinton – much of it, as we now know, fueled by Russian-sponsored troll farms who tried to sow division. They succeeded largely because the campaign was unprepared to fight back. It was too new for them to fully appreciate the damage being done in real time or to effectively counter the destructive narrative.

This time it’s different.

All In Together discovered that Harris has been winning the online Infowars for weeks. Since August, positive responses to her racist and sexist comments online have doubled negative attacks. This ‘Fight Back Ratio’, fueled by an extremely formal and informal online army of supporters, may be a reason for that Harris’ favors most polls have been growing steadily all summer, despite the high number of swab tests.

And now Harris herself is fighting back, reminding voters that she is strong, prepared and not intimidated. In her groundbreaking interview along with radio superstar Charlamagne Tha God, she responded head-on to some of the most common attacks. When asked if she wanted to repeat her talking point too often, Harris replied smartly and with a subtle comment on her opponent’s meandering chatter: “that’s called discipline.” And she didn’t let Trump say, “The man is really weak.” He is weak. It is a sign of weakness to want to please dictators and seek their flattery and favor.”

The vice president and her team are now taking the right steps to play offense and defense at the same time. Her victory in substance and strategy is urgent, not only for these elections, but for the sake of women’s political participation now and in the future.

Lauren Leader is co-founder and CEO of All In Together, a nonprofit social leadership organization for women and host of MAJORITY RULES on www.2WAY.TV