Gender and Political Cartoons

Abstract

This entry introduces a powerful, yet understudied, form of gendered mediation: the political cartoon. Editorial cartoons are important instruments of political persuasion because of their prevalence on the editorial pages of both print and online newspapers, their reliance on gender norms and stereotypes as visual metaphors, and their capacity to express biting critiques at a glance. The extant literature shows how these texts symbolically annihilate women by omitting them from the picture altogether, or by minimizing their actions. When they do draw women, cartoonists situate them in the domestic realm or as bystanders to public life, reinforcing gender stereotypes and the public man/private woman binary. Tropes of exaggerated femininity and hegemonic masculinity seem to be the stock‐in‐trade of editorial cartoonists. Patriarchal norms and power relations are replicated in political cartoons, thereby questioning women's capacity for political leadership and trivializing their ambitions. Yet there is insufficient research, especially in the contemporary moment and in countries beyond the United States, to determine whether the increased presence of women as political activists and leaders has prompted changes in cartoonists' portrayals.