Trump Unprepared for Debate, While Clinton Was Overprepared, Say Critics

Some media types are saying Hillary Clinton came off as too prepared in Monday night's debate with Donald Trump, their first meeting leading up to the presidential election.

NBC's Chuck Todd, for one, accused the Democratic presidential nominee of being "over-prepared at times" during the debate.

Todd seemed fascinated with the contrast between the "lack of preparation" on Trump's part and the supposedly excessive preparation by Clinton. In a tweet during the debate, Todd noted:

Todd also shared a Clinton campaign video of Alicia Machado, the pageant contestant who Trump called "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping," and appeared to take issue with Clinton bringing it up in the debate.

Todd wasn't the only one to call Clinton "over-prepared." Out MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts asked Clinton's campaign press secretary, Brian Fallon, "Was there a conscious effort not to overprepare your candidate to avoid looking stiff or robotic in this big moment?" "I think she does a lot of preparation because she takes this platform seriously, and she thinks she owes it to the voters to take it seriously," Fallon told Roberts.

During the debate, Trump criticized the former secretary of State for not campaigning the previous week. "I've been all over the place. You decided to stay home, and that's OK," said the Republican nominee.

Clinton took this as an opportunity to criticize Trump. "I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes, I did," said Clinton, who has also been a U.S. senator from New York as well as first lady. "And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president. And I think that's a good thing." She posted the quote on her Facebook page.

But what is the term "overprepared" getting at exactly? Brenda Weber, a gender studies professor at Indiana University, told The Washington Post that Todd's statement was a subtle sexist jab at Clinton.

"It sounds similar to the data we see about women in classrooms," she said. "Students will say a smart and competent female professor sounds 'overbearing' or 'overly intellectual,' whereas they expect a male professor to be authoritative or actually know what he's talking about."

Weber referenced a study from the University of Washington, published in February, indicating women who study biology had to strikingly surprass the performance of their male peers to be perceived as equally smart.

But some differ with Weber. Sarah Lenti, a Republican strategist and former aide to Condoleezza Rice, told the Post that she doesn't believe the "overprepared" statement is sexist. Instead, she said it meant that Clinton came off "as too rehearsed, too stiff, not authentic," wrote the Post.

"If it were Bernie [Sanders] on the stage with Trump, and he had left the campaign trail to prepare, he might have also been accused of overpreparing," Lenti told the Post. "Honestly, who cares? It's an accusation that I think any presidential candidate would be happy to embrace."

Clinton is no stranger to being criticized for sounding too rehearsed or not authentic enough, but it's a criticism that many women face in the workplace. A study from Stanford University showed that women in leadership positions are more likely to be criticized than their male counterparts, noted the Post.