Jessica

Vozel

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April 6, 2009

Triviality as the Sole Domain of Women

There’s a lot going on in our world right now. Economies in shambles. A defiant North Korea sending a rocket over the Pacific on Sunday. A meeting of world leaders at the G-20 summit.

Yet you wouldn’t know it if you perused the Huffington Post – the liberal-leaning blog site’s “Most Popular” stories mostly involve fashion. Sure, the large-type feature stories are about North Korea and the meeting of G-20 leaders, but these headlines seem like a necessary concession, a front for pretending North Korean weaponry matters while the readers themselves gobble up news and commentary on what the G-20 wives, particularly Michelle Obama, are wearing. 

Michelle Obama has apparently disappointed some of her fashion-forward fans by wearing a too-drab black-and-white dress and “shapeless” cardigan to meet the Queen of England. The Jackie-O comparisons are already being retracted, with one writer urging the First Lady to please, please consult the former First Lady’s style books. Especially damning is that Michelle chose to wear – with her bulky cardigan – an A-line dress that doesn’t “flatter her figure.”

Because, of course, flattering one’s figure is the most important thing a woman can do, especially when meeting the Queen, whose delicate sensibilities obviously cannot handle loose clothing on a female guest. 

Fashion commentators also delight in pitting Michelle Obama and Carla Sarkozy against one another, comparing their outfits and creating a fashion rivalry that is surely above the two important, worldly women.

This fashion obsession, of course, is offensive not just because there are more important things to be worried about – there is space and time for trivialities even when the world is seemingly going mad, and perhaps especially so. Fashion is fun and silly and makes for an interesting diversion from the world’s problems, which is probably why its readership has spiked and why the Huffington Post responds accordingly by offering more fashion-based drivel.

But precisely because fashion is fun, and for the most part inconsequential, it’s insulting that evaluations of Michelle Obama should depend most upon what she is wearing, rather than her political astuteness, her smarts and the projects she undertakes as First Lady. Must women be reduced to these trivialities time and time again? 

Sure, some fashion mavens see the incredible importance in one’s attire. I’ll even concede that how one dresses reflects something about that person, and when a meeting with the Queen is involved, certain conventions must be maintained. But the fact remains that men don suits and have a little wiggle room with the ties they chose. Their simple, straightforward get-ups are fairly foolproof, while women have a whole range of clothes that can be labeled appropriate or inappropriate, figure-flattering or shapeless, a “do” or a “don’t.”

The G-20 leaders are tackling the important stuff while their wives are subject to scrutiny not for their own projects that impact the world, but for the fabrics they use to cover their bodies, for their ability to stack up as arm candy. 

Says Jennifer Donahue for the Huffington Post, “It's a bad day when I am reading about our First Lady's hip to bust ratio. I saw the photos and thought not about what she and the president were wearing, but about the amazing fact that the Queen of England was flanked by two African Americans who are President and First Lady of the United States of America.”

Perhaps this is what comes from having a young, good-looking couple in the White House. Michelle Obama, it must be said, seems to enjoy fashion herself and thus in some ways spurred the Jackie-O-like frenzy about her wardrobe. But the constant speculation is damaging not just to Michelle. We don’t need to promulgate the message that men are capable of anything – including solving the world’s problems – and women are capable at looking good, and, if they happen to be doing something else important, it only matters if they look good doing it. 

There’s a place for trivialities. Let’s just not make that place the sole domain of women. 

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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