Thought The Presidential Debate Was Weird Or Sexist? Check Out The First Lady Cookie Bake-Off

Tomorrow, millions of votes will be tallied in the US to decide who best satisfies the needs and wants of the nation: a stack of star-shaped slivers of butter and sugar, or a pile of big ol’ chocolate chips. Introducing Family Circle’s First Lady Cookie Bake-Off (recently re-named the Presidential Cookie Poll): one of the most fascinating and strange things to come from this already extremely ridiculous presidential election.

The contest, which has run from 1992, is billed as a way for families to get involved with the election in a fun, hands-on way. The concept is simple: a couple of months before a presidential election, each prospective First Lady submits a family cookie recipe to the magazine. Readers bake and taste test the cookies, then vote for their favourite. The recipe with the highest number of votes has only once failed (when Cindy McCain’s oatmeal butterscotch offering was chosen over Michelle Obama’s shortbread in 2008) to predict the winner of the election proper in its 24-year history.

As far as election predictions go, the Cookie Bake-Off appears to be pretty wholesome. While not as wacky as relying on the woolly bear caterpillar population to provide the answer, or as avant-garde as a fortune teller’s foretelling, the competition provides a peek into the home lives of possible presidents-to-be. The fact that this family-friendly angle has to come in direct association with the candidates’ wives, however, tells a wider story about the sexism rampant in US politics.

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The Cookies That Have Plagued Clinton’s Career

This year, Hillary Clinton has copped a barrage of attacks far worse than the average vicious assaults aimed at a presidential candidate. While campaigns are always nasty, the first female candidate for the job has had to endure outright sexism at every stage of her campaign from her opponents, from the media and from the public. It’s not the first time sexism has been directed Clinton’s way, after all she is a female figure in the public sphere. And, win or lose, it won’t be the last.

Many of the questions about Hillary Clinton’s ability to hold one of the most influential leadership roles in the world, the ongoing criticism of her wardrobe and the jokes about her marriage all stem from the same sexism that assumes she should instead be in the kitchen baking cookies while her husband runs the country.

In fact, it was this topic that sparked Family Circle to kick off the contest in 1992.

When questioned about her own high-powered career during her husband Bill Clinton’s presidential bid, Hillary Clinton told the press, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfil my profession”. The comment was taken by many as an insult to stay-at-home mothers and fuelled a common perception of her as “smug” or “self-righteous”. The magazine ran with the comment and created the contest as a defiant, cheeky response.

Due to its popularity, Clinton herself then got on board with the bake-off. Her oatmeal choc-chip cookies won that same year, then predicting the same positive result for her husband. The cookie competition continued, despite constant complaints that it fuels an undercurrent of sexism in politics that continues to this day.

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2016 And The Problem Of The First Man

When faced for the first time with the possibility of a First Man entering the White House (First Man, First Gentleman, First Dude or First Lad? — now there’s a poll worth having), Family Circle have this year renamed the contest the Presidential Cookie Poll.

OMG BILL CLINTON SUBMITTED A COOKIE RECIPE TO FAMILY CIRCLE THIS IS IT THE PATRIARCHY IS COMING DOWN

— Kate Stayman-London (@_ksl) August 18, 2016

Notably, cookie recipes have been submitted by Melania Trump and from “The Clinton Family” — that family recipe being the same one that Hillary first won with 24 years ago. Die-hard cookie fans have cried foul about Bill’s unoriginal submission and the fact that the cookies are loaded with butter and eggs despite the fact he’s vegan. The fact he also hasn’t put his name to the recipe is perhaps also telling about the remaining sexist perceptions of a man’s role within a household.

Bill Clinton might have submitted Hillary’s recipe to the poll because he simply didn’t have one of his own, or perhaps he really wanted to win and knew that hers was an unbeatable recipe. Regardless of the reason for his not submitting an original recipe, ultimately, Bill didn’t submit because he didn’t have to. There was no media outcry at his lack of demonstrated baking skills and his worth as a father and husband has not been questioned. Unlike the women who came before him, Bill’s worth isn’t measured in the cookies he serves, or the duties he performs for his spouse.

For more on that point, we highly recommend watching the ‘Pie-Mary’ episode from Parks and Recreation’s seventh season. Its story of a pie-baking competition for city council candidates’ wives is nearly an exact play-by-play of what’s happening in real life.

As it currently stands, The Clinton Family cookie recipe is in the lead, with over triple the number of votes tallied for it than for Melania Trumps’ star cookies recipe. Voting in the poll will close tomorrow, exactly five weeks before the election.

Time will tell whether the Clinton cookies’ winning legacy will live on and correctly predict Hillary as president. And if it does, will we be ushered into an era where women are seen to be fit to serve in positions of power, allowed to make whatever choices they want about career and baking cookies?

We’ll have to wait for the next Presidential Cookie Poll to find out.

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Lauren Sherritt is a playwright and freelance writer based in Brisbane. Lauren’s work has been featured online at The Financial Diet, Birdee, LifeMusicMedia, lip magazine and Australian Stage.