Elle Magazine’s Sexist Praise of Hillary Clinton
Last week, we had a post about Elle’s gendered feature on Christine Quinn, the speaker of the New York City Council. This week, Elle’s Rachael Combe wrote a feature on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that is even worse.
There are several sexist components to this piece, but the one that is the most insulting to Clinton implies that she is successful because she “played by the rules,” so to speak.
Clinton is, at her core, still a good girl. She won over the old boys in the Senate by pouring them coffee, letting them stand in the center of photographs, and generally respecting the established hierarchy of the institution.
Wow. Where do we begin? How about with the phrase, “good girl?” It calls to mind a small child being patted on her head by her father who is rewarding her for behaving.
Not to mention the gross misreading of history by insinuating that the secret to her success in the Senate was because she poured men coffee and let them stand in the center of photographs. Combe fails to mention any substantive work Clinton did, either in the Senate or in her role as secretary of state, which is why she is enjoying such sky-high approval ratings. It’s as if she’s good at her job because she’s popular, instead of the other way around.
Combe continues down this extremely sexist path when she describes, in detail, Clinton’s hair, clothes, and jewelry and then brushes off feminists’ attempts to stop that type of sexist media coverage.
Feminists and supporters will often wail for everyone to stop focusing on Clinton’s hair and clothes and listen to her ideas, but that’s sort of a backhanded compliment. (People, she’s too smart to care that she looks like crap.) The truth is, Clinton does care (she’s a bottle blond! Do you know how much work that is?), and, to my eye, she’s finally hit her personal-style groove.
Again, we have multiple issues here. First off, feminists and supporters are apparently “wailing,” another word often used in reference to women who speak up and defend themselves. Then the insinuation that feminists and Clinton’s supporters think she looks “like crap,” but is too smart to care. Combe is missing the point here. It is not that women being targeted by sexist media look like “crap.” The issue is that the media focuses on their appearance and not their policies, and that men do not suffer through the same scrutiny when it comes to appearances. (While we’re at it, we’re pretty sure Condoleezza Rice also had far more attention paid to her clothing than Christopher Warren.)
The most bizarre thing about this feature is that Combe presents herself as a woman who wants to see other women succeed.
According to the Congressional Research Service, at the rate we’re going, it will take 500 years to reach gender parity in government. “Baby,” I had to admit to my newborn girl, “we have not come as long a way as I thought.”
Unfortunately, if the media insists on continuing to call female politicians “good girl,” and commenting on their appearance, rather than focusing on what they do, it may take even longer than 500 years.
Published by Kate McCarthy on 04/06/2012