Lead image for Beyond the microphone: The untold reality of women campaigning for political office .
A female political aspirant recently shared, on social media, her experience on the campaign trail, and it was eye opening. We rarely think about what it takes for a woman to campaign deep in the hinterland. To most of us, it looks effortless. We see a woman standing before a crowd, microphone in hand, confidently making her case. What we do not see is everything it took for her to get there. As a feminist, those are moments I celebrate.
But I have also realised that what we see is only the final few minutes of a much longer and far more difficult journey. Yet behind that microphone, behind the confident delivery of her agenda, lies a struggle that demands far more than thick skin.
A political rally, seen from the stage, looks like democracy at its most alive—the noise, the colour, the crowd pressing forward. But step inside the crush, and it feels very different. Dust catches in the throat, bodies push too close, and strangers’ hands haul a candidate up to the dais because there is no ramp, no order, no one tasked with making sure she arrives steady and composed. There is rarely a seat kept at the front for her, so she learns quickly to fight for one. If she is lucky, a microphone reaches her for a few seconds, in which she is expected to compress an entire candidacy into a single line before it moves on. The convoy, too, will not stop for her comfort. Hunger, thirst, even the need for a toilet are managed on a schedule set by security logistics, not biology.
No room for elegant dresses
No one explains this to a first-time woman aspirant beforehand. She figures them out as she goes. After one difficult rally, she knows better what to wear next time. The elegant dress stays in the wardrobe. Instead, she chooses trousers and comfortable shoes that will carry her through rough terrain, crowded rallies and long days on the road. Climb onto whatever vehicle offers the best vantage point, heat notwithstanding. Watch the security detail around her, not because they are hers, but because a stranger’s team may occasionally do the lifting she cannot manage on her own.
What is easy to miss, watching from outside, is how much of this has nothing to do with policy or persuasion. It is about logistics that were never built with a woman’s body or safety in mind. A young man arriving underdressed for the coast faces inconvenience. A young woman in the same position faces danger–a structural difference. It is why women who survive the circuit start sharing advice: whose car has space, which security team might help, and when it is wiser to let go of the microphone than risk being trapped in a dispersing crowd.
It is easy to dismiss all these as the rough and tumble of politics. After all, campaigning is demanding for everyone. But the more I read the aspirant’s post, the more it became clear that women are navigating challenges many of their male counterparts will never encounter. A terrain that requires male security to physically carry a candidate to safety, that has no toilets built into a convoy route, that assumes every aspirant can climb onto a hot vehicle roof unassisted, is not neutral. It is a course built around one kind of body and one kind of risk, with everyone else expected to adapt or fall behind.