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Isn't there also sort of an historical trend to refer to women by first name, men by last name? For that reason alone I'm honestly a little surprised but pleasantly so that they landed on Harris vs Kamala!

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It's kind of a demeaning trend, but a trend nonetheless.

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Right, exactly! It was honestly one of my first thoughts when Biden dropped out and endorsed her. Like here we go again with man's last name vs woman's first name. This is refreshing.

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Jul 26Liked by Nancy Friedman

Wow, here in Boston I've never heard "Friedman" mispronounced, but my "Freeman" often gets uncorrected to Freedman/Friedman. (Possibly Jewish husband has something to do with it.)

I've been mulling over the firstname/lastname thing too, thinking back to "I like Ike" and "I'm just wild about Harry" and so on. Aside from the sexism, it may be that women have more distinctive/varied names (thus better name recognition). If Hillary and Kamala had been named Mary and Amy, would we be so ready to use first names?

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Well, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (understandably) used “Amy for America" during her 2020 presidential campaign.

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Jul 26Liked by Nancy Friedman

Yes, that's another factor — there's always going to be the question of what sounds best when you're coining a slogan. (They probably should have nixed "Stick with Dick," though.)

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Jul 26Liked by Nancy Friedman
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Oh, they knew what they were doing. It wasn't an official slogan, though.

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😂

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Agreed. Using "Harris" means equal footing, not to mention one less opportunity for name-mongering. We all know what happened with "Obama."

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