There is a truth to what both of you are saying. Because from what I know Kamala is disliked among both Indian citizens and Inner-city black communities.
Hillary campaigned as Hillary (her slogan was "Hillary for America") as did Jeb, W., Pete, Bernie and others. Gilibrand and Warren campaigned with their last names.
It has to do with how candidates choose to brand themselves.
To the extent that this is true, it is not because they are women, but because they have uncommon names, at least uncommon among American public figures. If I say "Kamala is unpopular among inner-city communities", you're likely to know who I'm talking about. If I say the same about "Joe" you're much more likely to be confused.
Additionally, people often say "Trump", "Obama", "Biden". Saying "Clinton" is somewhat ambiguous (Hillary or Bill?). "Harris" could work, but it is definitely a more common name than Kamala.
Additionally there are other women in power who do get referred by their full names. People don't talk about "Marjorie", they use "Marjorie Taylor-Green". They don't talk about Ruth (Bader-Ginsburg) or Diane (Feinstein) or Janet (Yellen) or Margaret (Thatcher).
Bernie Sanders is an immediate and obvious counterexample to your assertion that people only do this for Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. There's also Jeb Bush, Pete Buttigieg, Marco Rubio, and many others.
The exclusion of these fairly obvious counterexamples suggests that you are engaging in a form of confirmation bias.
There is reason to believe that people are sexist toward female politicians, but the first-name basis of Kamala and Hillary is not a strong piece of evidence, given that we do that for the aforementioned male politicians (and don't do it for a lot of other female politicians, such as Elizabeth Warren, Sarah Palin and AOC)
But interestingly, I call Jimmy Carter the full name, too. Can’t bring myself to use just “Carter”.
Though, why does the US culture so insist on taking the husband’s family name? It kinda feels like “Hilary” is the actual name of the person, and Clinton is imposed.
Watch the series about her; She didn't want to, but did in the end for her husband’s political ambitions which was hampered by having such a progressive woman as wife..!
