In the 2023 Barbie movie, America Ferrera delivers a monologue that gives voice to a grueling reality: To be a woman in leadership is to be a walking contradiction. You have to be “extraordinary,” but somehow, you’re “always doing it wrong.” You must be “perfect,” yet you are still denied a seat at the table. You have to be a “boss but you can’t be “mean.” It highlights a recurring, bitter theme in American politics: What more does a woman need to do in order to be taken seriously as a leader when compared to low-achieving men?
We’ve seen this script before. We watched Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris — women with resumes a mile long — be denounced and picked apart while running against Donald Trump, who famously entered the highest office in the country with zero prior experience in governance, serving as a reminder that we often allow men to ‘learn on the job’ while demanding perfection from women. Now, as Philadelphia looks toward the 3rd Congressional District, we are seeing this “Barbie paradox” play out in real-time with Dr. Ala Stanford.
The burden of over-qualification
Dr. Stanford has done everything society claims it wants from a leader. A world-class pediatric surgeon from North Philadelphia, she didn’t just escape her circumstances; she returned to them. When local government was paralyzed by the pandemic, she took to the streets to save lives. She founded the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium without initial government support, proving that her operational leadership and follow-through were more effective than any legislative memo.
The depth of her service is perhaps best illustrated by a single, undeniable fact: When the vaccine finally arrived, it was Dr. Stanford herself who personally administered the shots to her current political rival’s father, former Mayor John Street, several other family members, and Democratic City Committee Chair, former Congressman Bob Brady. She was on the front lines saving lives while the political establishment she now faces was still trying to find its footing in a Zoom-based world. Yet, despite being “exalted” for her service and cutting her teeth in the Biden administration, critics claim she isn’t “ready” because she isn’t a career politician.
The tightrope of perfection vs. the shield from accountability
While Dr. Stanford is picked apart, her male opponents are rarely held to the same “model citizen” standard — let alone the impossible “perfection” required for her to even be considered by Democratic Party leaders. A disparity exists where Stanford must walk a precarious tightrope of “extraordinary” leadership just to get a foot in the door, while her male rivals are often shielded from accountability, allowed to fail upward or hide behind the safety net of the establishment. Women are held to a grueling merit standard, while legacy and lapses in judgment that would be career-ending for any woman are frequently overlooked.
The power of a name
State Senator Sharif Street continues to benefit from a political legacy that serves as a masterclass in the “failure upward” phenomenon of the Pennsylvania political machine. While women leaders are subjected to exhaustive vetting for any perceived imperfection, male legacy candidates like Street are ushered into power with institutional protection that borders on immunity.
The double standard is most glaring when critics question Dr. Ala Stanford’s “readiness.” When Street first ran for State Senate in 2016, his primary qualifications were his professional background as a housing attorney and his dad, former Mayor John Street. The local Democratic Party deemed this sufficient, clearing the field so he could run unopposed in the primary and general elections. He was validated by the political machine and voters in the district before a single vote was cast.
It’s time to stop asking if Dr. Stanford is “ready” for the machine, and start asking if the machine is ready for a woman who doesn’t need its permission to lead.
Yet, after nearly a decade in power, questions of accountability from his party and voters remain scarce. As Chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party in 2024, Street oversaw a catastrophic cycle where Republican Dave McCormick ousted longtime incumbent Bob Casey, and Donald Trump carried the state by the largest GOP margin since 1988. In most industries, a failure of this magnitude results in an immediate exit. Street, however, maintained his position until August 2025, when he stepped down on his own terms to run for Congress.
Contrast this with the treatment of Dr. Stanford. Critics usually ignore that her executive experience — serving as a Regional Director for HHS under President Biden for one year and overseeing health programs across six states — far outstrips Street’s initial resume. She had to build a mountain of results just to be invited to the table, bypassing failing local structures to save lives during a global crisis. While critics dissect her every move, they remain curiously quiet about the stagnation of North Philadelphia under Street’s watch. One has to wonder: What would a leader with Stanford’s “seeing and doing” DNA have accomplished if she had been born with the Street last name?
The luxury of lapses
This systemic bias is equally visible in the case of State Representative Chris Rabb. While Stanford is scrutinized for her readiness, Rabb’s judgment remains dangerously under-examined. On April 30, Rabb hosted a fundraiser with Hasan Piker, an influencer whose rhetoric regarding the sexual violence of October 7 — stating “it doesn’t matter if fucking rapes happened” — is an abhorrent affront to the dignity of women. As I noted in The Philadelphia Inquirer regarding this event: “I don’t know a woman in Philadelphia who would speak so callously about rape or align with someone who speaks this way.”
Throughout his term, Rabb has also invoked negative tropes historically used to marginalize Jewish communities. By relentlessly asserting his opponents are “bankrolled” by “Zionist lackeys,” he fuels the antisemitic fire of “Jewish money and control” commentary which has spread like wildfire on social media. The consequences are real: I recently choked on a sip of water as a family member, emboldened by such rhetoric, remarked, “well, the Jews run everything in this country.”
Have we held Chris Rabb to female-level standards of knowledge on the Israel-Palestine topic that his campaign has prioritized in this race? Does he understand the history of religious persecution in the Middle East and border fluctuation over a millennium, or is he simply afforded the grace to be “divisive” while Stanford is heckled for being “uninformed” and “careful”? Stanford walks a language tightrope, carefully considering the weight of her words regarding a complex war a million miles away. For her reluctance in using a single keyword — genocide — she is met with angry mobs and discreditation.
It is the height of hypocrisy to demand “perfection” from a surgeon like Stanford while giving a pass to men who align with those who minimize the rape of women, or oversee a state-wide political collapse and calls it leadership.
Walking the walk
Philadelphia, the birthplace of American ideals and the epicenter for political debate about diversity, equity and inclusion in our political arena, deserves leadership reflecting that legacy. The tragedy of the “Barbie paradox” in the 3rd Congressional District isn’t just that it’s unfair to Dr. Ala Stanford; it’s that it’s a disservice to Philadelphia. When we demand perfection from women and settle for “participation trophies” from men, we ensure that our leadership remains stagnant. We allow the machine to protect its own while the surgeon who actually knows how to heal the city is left standing outside the operating room.
While Rabb and Street are afforded the grace of “growing into the job” or “mistakenly” using offensive tropes, Stanford is discredited as not ready. As voters, we have to stop being the ones who police the tightrope for ambitious women because “it is literally impossible to be a woman,” as Barbie’s America Ferrera frustratingly professed. If we continue to hold women to a standard of flawless “extraordinary leaders” while letting men fail upward with impunity, we aren’t just choosing a candidate — we are choosing to keep the system broken.
In this election, Philadelphia has a choice: we can keep the “perfect” script that benefits the powerful, or we can finally choose the leader who has already proven she can do the work. It’s time to stop asking if Dr. Stanford is “ready” for the machine, and start asking if the machine is ready for a woman who doesn’t need its permission to lead.
Eryn Santamoor is a resident of the 3rd Congressional District and a committeeperson in the 9th Ward. She is a former chief of staff in City Council, and previously served as a Deputy Managing Director for the City of Philadelphia, where she led strategic public safety initiatives, and reform efforts throughout city government. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government, she has also served as a national consultant on fiscal and operational policy for cities and states across the country.
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