For years, women were forced out of the political landscape, as it was believed to be a man’s social sphere. Only recently have women become integrated into the world of politics, and even now the majority of countries haven’t seen a female leader or integrated women equally into legislative bodies.
According to UN Women, “gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years.” There won’t be an even gender split in legislative bodies until 2063.
Nonetheless, governments around the world are making significant strides towards political gender equality. More than a third of the world’s countries have had a female leader, and in the United States, 13 out of 50 state governors are women, a record high.
With this integration, women have faced unprecedented challenges, one of these being fashion critique from the media. It seems that whenever a woman has something to say, the media is more focused on her footwear or the color of her eyeshadow.
Recently, trends surrounding “conservative girl” makeup gained traction on the internet. People criticize figures including the United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Laura Loomer and other conservative women for “Mar-a-Lago face.” “Mar-a-Lago” face is a makeup look involving full lips, prominent (and often altered) cheek bones and a strong jaw, among other characteristics.
While one might not agree with these women’s politics, criticizing the makeup they wear rather than their policies erases the years of progress we’ve made towards political and global equality. Degrading a woman down to the cosmetic alterations pits women against one another in a political landscape that’s already divided enough.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, was under fire when she showed up to her husband’s inauguration sporting $630 dollar boots. Critics were quick to point out Duawji’s expensive footwear, commenting that if the mayor’s policies are built on anti-poverty, working-class and socialist thinking, her shoes are directly hypocritical to what her husband promotes.
Karoline Leavitt commented that Duwaji’s boots were a demonstration of “classic Communism – rules for you, but not for them.”
What critics failed to point out is that countless other women have worn expensive footwear, including the First Lady, who often sports Louboutin’s, shoes costing upwards of $1,000. But I’m not here to put one woman down to bring another up. Whether it’s Melania Trump or Duwaji, their footwear doesn’t make inflation go up and down or stop wars. In fact, it doesn’t have anything to do with politics.
The double standard becomes apparent when the large majority of news outlets fail to examine the clothing choices of male politicians. Journalism surrounding male political leaders’ fashion choices isn’t nonexistent. Incidents that come to mind include Barack Obama’s tan suit and President Donald Trump’s infamous orange foundation shade, but no one says that Trump’s foundation has anything to do with his leadership policies, as they say a woman’s shoe choice does.
Countless young women look to female politicians as role models or examples of what’s possible for their future. While these young girls see powerful women getting shrunk down to the way they look, they experience their own form of judgment.
Many teenage girls experience pressure from adults and educators in their life to dress “respectfully” or “modestly” because people will perceive them in a certain way depending on the clothes they wear. Girls are constantly judged and told by grown adults that it’s their fault when people react with hostility or predatory behavior because of what they wear.
In a study by Shuana Pomerates, titled “Dressing the Part: Girls, Style & School Identities,” Pomerates writes, “Under the guise of social order, dress codes made girls accountable for a school’s ‘moral community’ (Fine, 1990), framing them equally and contradictorily as the gatekeepers of goodness.”
“Girls’ style, given no respite in the press, was constructed as ‘unsafe’ without further thought to its use as an intricate and shifting system of signs that could offer insight into girl’s negotiations of identity in the school,” Pomerates wrote.
Just as girls’ school clothes are reported on while gunmen kill their classmates, female politicians’ clothes are studied and beaten into the ground while wars happen. Frankly, there are more important things to worry about than the way a woman does her hair.
When little girls look at leaders and see someone like them, they shouldn’t worry about the shade of foundation on the woman’s face or the price of their footwear. The way a woman dresses, whether a teenager or a world leader, does not bear on her capability, intelligence or impact on the world.
Instead of worrying about “Mar-a-Lago face” and Duwaji’s boots, we should study the significant strides these women are making in politics that only exist because women have been brave enough to fight against oppression and create seats at the table when they had none. Now, we must do this once more and show that we have value far beyond what’s on the surface.
