Lauren Leader: New York Times Was ‘Sexist’ in Calling Elizabeth Warren ‘Aggressive’

EXCERPT:

BRZEZINSKI: "Lauren, describe the specifics of a negative coverage. I mean, is it in a way, kind of characteristic of the stereotypes we've seen in the past? What --"
LEADER: "Absolutely."
BRZEZINSKI: "-- specific negative coverage are you talking about?"
LEADER: “Yeah. No, absolutely. And the watchdog group at Northeastern University which has been tracking the words, the actual number of words and the kinds of words that we use to describe the women candidates, you know, aggressive, you know, difficult, you know, shrill, all the kinds of sort of gender tropes that we have unfortunately become really accustomed to. You know, and you see this everywhere. I mean, in the recent article about Neera Tanden in 'The New York Times' that called her aggressive over and over again. So you know, we see this, once you start noticing -- I mean, this is what's happening, once you start to sort of raise your level of consciousness and you start to look at notice you see things in a new way. And I think that’s what we really need, all of us in the media to do, is to just pay attention, to pay attention and to be looking more closely and holding ourselves accountable for the way that we're describing these candidates. These are highly qualified women --"
BRZEZINSKI: "Yeah."
LEADER: "-- who have dedicated their lives to public service. They deserve better than this.”