While unwed women replace soccer moms as the coveted swing vote in the upcoming presidential election, women’s issues are forced off the back burner. And experts say first lady bake-offs might not be tolerated in the new political climate.

When George H. W. Bush and running mate Dan Quayle thought that Quayle’s “good looks” would win over the women’s vote during their 1988 presidential campaign, “it was tremendously insulting to women and ineffectual,” said Associate Professor of Women’s Studies Deborah Cohler.

“Certainly the way women were treated as potential voters in the last 20 years has changed,” she said. “In some ways, political campaigners have had to become more savvy.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 3 percent more women than men voted in the last presidential election. Candidates have been forced to find ways to appeal to women voters with policy promises rather than pretty faces.

Cohler said that the image of the first lady has also changed from the quaint homemaker type, to candidates like Elizabeth Edwards who openly disagrees with her husband on certain issues such as gay marriage.

From first lady to presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton has nearly come full circle in her image transformation. By running for the Democratic ticket, she is challenging her contenders to work harder to appeal to women voters.

“I think that the effect of that is to keep women on the front burner,” said James Martel, associate professor and chair of SF State’s Political Science Department. “I think that it helps to focus people,” he said.

Martel said that women tend to vote for men’s issues, but men do not necessarily vote for women’s issues. “This will work to galvanize that,” he said.

According to Martel, other ways in which women’s issues are handled in the upcoming election will get a jolt of change. Certain forms of campaign attacks and mudslinging might not have a place in the presidential race. “In many elections, Republicans pull out this attack on feminist issues,” he said.

“Hillary Clinton herself has been villanized by the right,” Martel said. This time around, the climate is not healthy for that type of thing. He said that he speculates that some attacks will still occur, but that “I don’t think they’ll be able to go full hog on it.”

A woman running for president might alter the current political climate, but won’t create a feminist shift in politics if she is not elected, said David Tabb, a political science professor at SF State. He said that another new factor that campaigners must also take into account is a demographic change among women. “An increasingly large number of [working and middle class] women are unmarried,” Tabb said.

That means that if Clinton won the presidency, “that would have significant affects on the role of women in politics,” Tabb said. But not necessarily if she doesn’t win, he added.

Some female SF State students said that a candidate would not secure their support just because Clinton is a woman.

“I think that a man can also represent women’s issues well,” SF State student Emily Varlet said.

“I think that it’s a mistake to assume women candidates will necessarily and always be stronger advocates for women, rather than men,” Cohler said, adding that women are more likely to advocate for their gender than not.

“Initially, I was geared toward Clinton because she is a woman, but not just because of that,” said Angelica Bernabe, a junior at SF State. “I did see her last debate and she didn’t do too well in my eyes.”

Whether or not a woman makes it to the top of the White House in 2008, Martel said that Clinton’s role in the race “would make things conceivable that weren’t conceivable before.”

“I’m old enough to have remembered having interviewed someone, who when asked whether she was registered to vote, she said ‘I didn’t’ believe in that law when they passed it,’” Tabb said with a laugh. “The times have changed.”