Yet another article about Hillary Clinton in the Style section.

Last Sunday's New York Times Style magazine ran an article about female politicians. The fact that it was in the Style magazine was my first problem with it. But then, I suppose this article, titled "The Politics of Appearance: In a Realm Where Simulation is All, Authenticity May Lie in the Details," more than others that have appeared in the "Style" section of various newspapers and publications, actually has a legitimate focus on fashion and appearances. Still, I don't understand why women in politics are constantly scrutinized based on their appearance. Are they sexy or matronly? If the first, they can't be taken seriously and if the latter, they are constantly attacked because of their drab wardrobes.

Daphne Merkin, the author of the article, ultimately makes a valid point: we live in a "surface-oriented, looksist culture," to put it in her words, and that affects how we look at our leaders in government. In the political realm, where we're hard-pressed to find any authenticity, she argues, appearances matter. Especially for women:

"We study our female politicians as closely and obsessively as we do in part because they still remain something of an anomaly--we are, quite simply, less used to women standing in the spotlight demanding our close attention--and in part because their costuming is less homogenized than men, offering up an abundance of opportunities for inductive analysis: we study their shade of lipstick, we listen for a note of defensive shrillness in their voice, we infer, we project, we accept or discount official positions for reasons that ar eneither fully conscious nor even rational."

To me, this is an accurate explanation as to why we are so obsessed with appearances, and why we place our judgement so disproportionately on female politicians. As for men being subjected to our critical gaze? They all wear the same thing. "[H]ow many ways can you look at a tie...?" Merkin asks.

Where I start getting annoyed with this article is when Merkin brings up Hillary Clinton. She says that voters want to see some authenticity, or at least faux-authenticity in their candidate, and that goes hand-in-hand with a consistent public image. Merkin argues that our obsession with anything to do with Hillary Clinton--anything besides, you know, her actual policies and voting record--has to do with the fact that we don't really know who she is. And then she argues that this is (at least partly) because of her lack of a consistent personal style. Um, really?

"Who is Hillary? Will we ever know? Not, it would appear, if she can help it. She has held the stage for 15 years now and remains impenetrable, like a veiled woman. [okay, I have to interrupt here. Impenetrable? Seriously?] She is famous for her miromanagement skills[...]and for running an airtight campaign, where no one ever says anything off the record and leaks are unheard of. She seems to revel in being both visible and annonymous[...], as though this combination might add to her mystique or give her a kind of inverse glamour. But instead of being intrigued, we end up being irritated.[...]Why hasn't she landed on a signature style other than her fallback position of mix-and-match jackets or trousers? There is a discernible discomfort with who she wants to present herself as being at any particular moment."

She says that Hillary wears her clothes "like armor, and for all of her newly flattering makeup[...], there is a grim determination that comes through, vitiating all the efforts to feminize and humanize her. The net effect of her discomfort is to make her seem glacial rather than vulnerable."

Oh, okay. Now she's not vulnerable enough? I understand that voters like to see some warmth and vitality and friendliness in their candidates, but when it comes to women, I have to say that we never seem to be free of the scary, ambitious, dominatrix vs. timid, vulnerable, in-her-place double standard. If Hillary Clinton is ambitious and determined, she is "glacial" (never mind the fact that we actually like those qualities in male candidates). But we all know if she tried to adopt a less visibliy ambitious persona, she wouldn't be taken seriously. Honestly, nothing she does will satisfy these people.

Merkin says near the end of the article that "the one thing that seems real about her--all too real, you might say--is her ambition." I say: so what? You have to be ambitious to run for president. And I don't think anyone can argue that Barack Obama, for example, is not equally ambitious. But we don't harp on that when it comes to Obama or any of the other male candidates because that's expected of them. Maybe Merkin meant that last statement in a more neutral way than I'm reading it, but I'm really getting sick and tired of people talking about how Hillary Clinton=ambitious=cold hard bitch.

Before going into all this Hillary stuff, Merkin first made this point:

"It is easy to accuse those who presume to comment on the wardrobe, hair or cosmetics of women in government as trivializing them and failing to respond to their intellect or rectitude. But it is also a wishful argument, a posture that is in denial, if you will, about the fact that we live in a profoundly surface-oriented, looksist culture that has permeated our way of percieving those who would be in charge of our lives. Women are implicated every bit as much as men int he pajama-party speculation that fuels the politics of appearance; shortly after Nancy Pelosi appeared on "Face the Nation" last January, Nora Ephron posted a blog entry in which she mused about the speaker's too-short haircut. Much as we like to think we vote on issues like abortion or gay rights, female candidates by necessity bring too much baggage--literal baggage, as in what to pack beyond a change of underwear--along with them when they go out on the hustings."

Yes, it's very true that we live in a culture that revolves around appearances. But that doesn't make it okay to continue to micro-analyze the fashion-choices of Hillary Clinton or any other female politician (or male politician, for that matter) as serious issues in a campaign or political career. And don't even try to pretend that male politicians get the same treatment (though Merkin doesn't, to her credit). To me, this article is basically acknowledging the reasons for the harsh environment that female politicians must navigate in this country, but just resigning itself to the fact that this is the world we live in. Yeah, it's the world we live in, but it sucks, and it's still wrong when anyone perpetuates this awful double-standard by continuing the discussion. How can anyone who comments on the fact that there are people in this country who will base their vote on Nancy Pelosi's haircut not be outraged? I sure as fuck am.

Anyway, it's not necessarily this article itself that I'm taking issue with. It makes some interesting points, and it is very well-written. It's the fact that this obsession with the fashion choices, personal style, and relative attractiveness of female politicians continues to be an ongoing discussion, and I'm going to be taking issue with any journalist who, no matter how well-spoken, no matter how aware he or she is of the realities of our culture, perpetuates it. But at least it's not cleavage.