Women of power just can’t win

Last week, I looked at why the fashion world snubs Ann Romney and her blasé wardrobe choices.

Thankfully, her Boston-based stylist Alfred Fiandaca cleared it up for us by saying Romney is “too feminine for high fashion.”

As if declaring your entire clientele base incapable of fashion wasn’t enough of a faux pas, Fiandaca merely echoes the cries of an oppressive media.

For example, let’s flashback to 2008. Two women, then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and current U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, received repeated media attention for their appearances.

An article about Palin’s polka-dotted pedicure sticks out as one of the most frivolous articles of the campaign.

While the media shaped Palin into a ditzy Alaskan who was only a prettier version of the talking heads in Washington, the alternative option wasn’t any more attractive.

The media’s view of Clinton was the opposite.

She was constantly critiqued for looking decades older than her actual age and was formed into an ugly, crude woman because she did not fit the superficial standard of beauty.
 
The common denominator for the press’s critiques of these powerful women was their appearance.

Once in a blue moon, a magazine runs a story on how gray the president’s hair is getting, but even then the focus is on how stressful it is to be commander-in-chief.

Never has anyone suggested the president has really let himself go because he has an out-of-place gray hair.

Why? Because that is asinine. 

So, why should women be subjected to aesthetic critiques?

There are two major problems with this sort of coverage.

First, it creates unequal types of attention. When was the last time there was a fashion editorial on men in politics?

Granted, male politicians tend to don the same suits and striped ties year after year.

Second, it makes women seem like shallow beings who only care about material things.

Acclaimed Vogue Editor Anna Wintour said women of power just can’t win.
 
In an interview with Japanese Vogue, Wintour explained the problem.

“Just because you’re in a position of power, and you look good, and you enjoy fashion — does that mean you’re an idiot, or that it’s not seemly to be in a woman’s magazine?” she said. “If a man is in GQ, they don’t get the same kind of criticism.”

Amen.