Some friends have disliked Hillary Clinton's yellow coat at the debate with Bernie Sanders last night. I
did not much like that coat either, but with all due respect I think
this line of criticism wanders into and reveals the anti-feminist double
bind. This is a middle aged woman. The rules of dress for senior
politicians are based on the standard followed by men -- dark suit,
white shirt, dark or red tie. Women's clothing either imitates men
(reminding us that she's not a man, implicitly qualified on those
grounds for senior office), or it doesn't (ditto). That's the double
bind, and none of us is immune to it. I don't remember much mockery of
the clothing choices of the men in the race -- suit for the debate,
jeans for the farmyard, casual for the diner, or whatever. Or implicit
mockery of them for their figures. It is fashionable to suppose that
the society has moved past sexism (or racism), but we haven't. I'm not
accusing any of my friends here of this -- it's all of us.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/11/politics/democratic-debate-highlights/
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