Did Kari Lake's appearance help her win votes? Sadly, the answer may be yes

Suddenly, Kari Lake is everywhere.

And despite her election-denying, drag queen-equivocating, “BDE“-admiring ways, she now has a real shot at winning the Arizona gubernatorial race. It won’t matter that she was once far behind Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs: Kari Lake is paving her path to victory on surging MAGA stardom and showing us why she earned the title, “Trump in a skirt.”

I confess to a sort of morbid fascination and grudging admiration for Kari Lake, a longtime Phoenix TV anchor who has leveraged her years of experience in front of a camera to become a master communicator on the stump.

As an expert on diversity, equity and inclusion who has witnessed (and experienced) the different ways women and men behave and are treated in both corporate and entrepreneurial spaces, I wanted to find out more about gender differences, communication and authority as they pertain to Lake’s meteoric rise.

So I interviewed Deborah Tannen Ph.D., a Georgetown professor, world-renowned linguist and author of The New York Times’ bestselling books “You Just Don’t Understand” and “Talking from 9 to 5.”

Kari Lake smiles a lot, looks camera ready

After watching a few video clips of Lake and of her serious, intelligent, democracy-defending, “sane” but still hapless opponent Katie Hobbs, Tannen had some fascinating insights, beginning with appearance.

Explaining that men can be seen as having a “neutral” look, with less emphasis on appearance – in a way that women, who are “marked,” cannot – Tannen noted that Lake’s makeup, hair and clothing are always camera-ready and professionally appealing in a way that Hobbs has not yet mastered.

Also, Tannen remarked that Lake “smiles a lot” because women are told to smile in order to be perceived as having a more pleasant, agreeable personality. So, she has an attractive package from which to deliver her election lies and her nasty Trumpian barbs.

But Lake would not be where she is – in a very strong position to win the governor’s race – if she did not have the help of a particularly ineffectual opponent, and that she certainly has.

Katie Hobbs is a less effective communicator

Katie Hobbs, despite being a thoughtful, intelligent, capable person by all accounts, is also as passive and seemingly unsure of herself as Lake is aggressive and authoritative.

Hobbs refused to debate Lake with the excuse that she can’t participate in the spectacle of dignifying an election denier. What?

A male friend (and Kari Lake admirer) stated, “both men and women generally trust women more” but, he observed, if the woman doesn’t seem confident, “people won’t trust her to actually execute.”

On the trail: Lake wants Hobbs to recuse herself from election duties

And as Professor Tannen remarked, Hobbs is “the very stereotype of an ineffective female communicator. She sounds like a kid, a teenager. I can see why she doesn’t want to get on the debate stage with Ms. Lake who will just talk over her and get the best of her almost no matter what she says.”

Which brings us to the inevitable “double bind” experienced by women in positions of authority, and the different expectations we have of men and women in both the workspace and the political field. Women can’t be too aggressive (which is always perceived as masculine, thus not feminine enough) on the one hand, nor too gentle and passive (which is seen as impotent or powerless) on the other.

Women must play by an impossible dynamic

This impossible dynamic is played out every day inside every type of organization, where women will either be professionally rejected as being too assertive and unfeminine, or passed over as ineffective if they are seen as too amiable or cooperative, thereby giving an advantage to both male politicians and business managers alike.

However, Kari Lake’s unusual combination of soft and feminine in appearance, but aggressive and commanding in style, gives any opponent a perfect one-two punch.

And without a sharply-dressed, put-together, and more importantly – forceful female challenger to stand up to her, look her right in the eyes and challenge her controversial positions, she is likely to breeze into the governor’s mansion and thereby solidify her position at the top of the MAGA-focused heart of the Republican Party.

Susan Harmeling is associate professor of clinical entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California. Reach her at sharmeli@marshall.usc.edu.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake is surging because of our expectations of women