Pelosi: ‘Women Are Known to Be More, Shall We Say, Ethical than Men’

On this week’s broadcast of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) discussed the perils that female candidates face in public office.

According to the former House Speaker, those attacks often were attacks on “ethics” because women are more “ethical than men.”

Partial transcript as follows:

BRENNAN: You wrote in your book about that 2022 attack on your husband, and you said your daughter told you, if she had known what you were signing up for, she would never have given you her blessing to run for office in the first place.

PELOSI: Yes.

BRENNAN: Do you think that this threat of domestic violent extremism is having a chilling effect on new talent and — and anyone running for office?

PELOSI: Well, I certainly hope not.

But, over the years, when I was encouraging people to run for office, especially women, they would say, we could never take the abuse that you take. And that was really just abuse. It wasn’t physical, it was criticism and the rest of that, and that we don’t want our children subjected to that.

And, yes, I do think it will have a negative impact on people running for public office. Just — you know, in other words, if you’re — if you’re a mom, and they go after you as a — as a mom, and your child comes home crying from school because somebody said a negative thing because they saw it on TV, that the other side said something bad about you, you might not run for office.

BRENNAN: So you think it will discourage particularly women…

PELOSI: Particularly women.

BRENNAN: … from running?

PELOSI: Yes, I do.

I mean, I know that it has. But I hope that it will not, that we will have — shine a bright light on this and just say, this is unacceptable. This is unacceptable. See, for women, they always — they always — women are known to be more, shall we say, ethical than men. And so, when they go after women candidates, they go after their ethics.

And they’ll say this, that and the other thing. And then the child comes home from school crying because somebody said a bad thing about mom on TV. And nobody — nobody wants that. So, hopefully, the bright light shining on that will reduce — reduce that.

But I think that women have a — proven that they are — are more ethical, and that they — they are — well, maybe they’re not more ethical, they’re all ethical, but that they can then withstand that criticism.

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