Naomi Wolf: Through the Lookism Glass

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/through-lookism-glass-1375623589

It is doubtless demoralizing and distracting to an influential woman to be continually treated like a bimbo, or else told by major news outlets how unattractive, old, fat, or badly dressed she is. This gauntlet of scrutiny is why young women with great leadership qualities are often reluctant to enter the public eye: they see this abuse, whether “positive” or negative, as a no-win proposition, one that powerful men simply do not face.

Does the business press ever call JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon cute, or describe him as “pouty,” or remark on his good hair and nice abs, as though he were a male stripper? Do they ever ask Ben Bernanke, “What’s with the facial hair? It’s not 1979.” Do political reporters ever take Newt Gingrich to task for, say, being overweight, unfit, and a poor dresser?

No media outlet would ever print such observations, which, when aimed at men, would appear insulting, inappropriately personal, and irrelevant. So why is it still acceptable to run public commentary about the state of Merkel’s cleavage, or Hillary Clinton’s ankles?

We should try to imagine a world in which the Jamie Dimons and Newt Gingriches struggle daily to stay focused on their high-pressure jobs, while torrents of comment and attention are devoted to how “hot” and well-dressed they are, or alternatively, how out of shape, middle-aged, and sexually unappealing they are.

[Jim Lane]

1. In politics, women get more of that but men do get some.

Wolf asks, "Do political reporters ever take Newt Gingrich to task for, say, being overweight, unfit, and a poor dresser?" The answer is Yes. A quick search for "Gingrich" and "fat" turned up plenty of hits. Bill Clinton was also called fat by some detractors.

The outstanding contemporary example is Chris Christie. Several months ago, David Letterman did a Top Ten about Christie. I was hoping for some clever swipes at a politician I dislike, but every single item was about Christie's weight. Yawn.

I think Wolf is right that Ben Bernanke's beard has escaped adverse comment, but John Bolton's moustache has certainly been a target, at least on DU.

This is not to deny the gender bias. A woman whose physique was anything like Christie's or Gingrich's, or even Bill Clinton's, would suffer a much greater electoral disadvantage as a result.

As a side note about lookism unrelated to gender, see "Why no one’s talking about Newt’s weight", a November 2011 piece by David Sirota. He argued that Christie's weight was getting more attention than Gingrich's because the media village perceived Christie as an outsider. Sirota wasn't addressing sexism either way, but rather what he called "a stealth cultural, geographic and class bias — a bias for those who seem to represent the Washington aristocracy and against those who seem to represent the commoner." He didn't mean that Christie's policies helped the middle class, but that Christie was the "commoner" in this sense: "Something about his thick New Jersey accent, his middle-class Catholic roots, his blunt regular-guy speaking style, and his geographic base outside the Beltway made him seem all too much the working-class outsider — all too un-Washington."

[ismnotwasm]

2. If you look at the topic in the aggregate

You'll find women suffer far more often than men. But, then again, I remember an article in "The Stranger"-- I want to say by Dan Savage, but I don't remember-- referring to Newt Gingrich "as one Butt-Ugly piece of work in real life (as opposed to his Chucky-doll visual media appearance)

The question really comes down to one of measurable negative-outcomes as well as gendered societal expectations.