. . . There’s been something of a to-do about a certain presidential candidate’s supposed show of cleavage on the Senate floor last week. There was a Washington Post column about Ms. C’s attire, and then a Times Op-ed follow up (I’m afraid that link’ll only work for those of you who have TimesSelect.) by Judith Warner, who noted that, in the picture that accompanied the Post article, well, Warner couldn’t see even a hint of boob. So, of course, upon reading that, I immediately googled "Hillary" and "cleavage" and, while I did find a good bit of the hatin’ on the junior senator from the Empire State I’ve written about here previously, I couldn’t find any photos of the outfit in question beyond the non-cleavage-y one from the Post. Well, except for this one, but I’m not so sure it’s real.
In the Post article ("Hillary Clinton’s Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory," July 20) , Robin Givhan wrote, "Showing cleavage is a request to be engaged in a particular way" and "To display cleavage in a setting that does not involve cocktails and hors d’oeuvres is a provocation." But all I could see was a writer grandstanding and trying to make a story where there was none, making a mountain out of a — well, you know what I mean.
Warner, whose piece was entitled "The Cleavage Conundrum" (NYT, July 28) had as much to say about Givhan and her fixation on Sen’ Clinton’s attire as about the supposed skin show: "It’s a mark of how stunted we are as a society that, no matter what their age, accomplishments or stature, we still expect these women to maintain a level of image control worthy of a professional beauty" and concluded with her hope that, during the imminent second Clinton’s presidency, "at the very least, that predatory eyes won’t force her to spend a chunk of precious work time every day being packaged into an impenetrable, invulnerable suit of professionally styled armor."
While driving home tonight, I asked Anja if she’d heard about Hillary’s cleavage. First she, was, dare I say, titillated, thought I was talking about a young woman of the same name who until recently worked at our local cafe. When I said "Not that Hillary: Hillary," she just gave me a blank stare. I suppose she would’ve next hit on Ms. Swank, then Duff, and would’ve eventually realized whom I meant, but the point is not that my beloved is more attuned to local cafe hotties and movie stars than politicians (although, well, that’s also true), but that the words "Hillary Clinton" and "cleavage" just don’t jibe in most people’s minds. It’s like one of those old "One of these things is not like the others" segments from Sesame Street – you see "Hillary Clinton" and you see "cleavage" and you already know that one of them is the oddball. Any thoughts of Hillary and sexuality usually are those relating to her husband and the assumption that, because he played around, she didn’t get and/or didn’t want any. As I’ve noted here previously, Senator Clinton’s most vitriolic haters give her a sexuality that most of the population doesn’t: nearly all of them call her some version of "dyke," often prefaced by "Commie."
It’s not easy being Hillary Clinton, and it doesn’t look as if wearing even a marginally low-cut blouse is helping one bit. If her decolletage was, as Givhans put it, an intentional "small acknowledgment of sexuality and femininity," it seems to have failed as such and just made the media pay attention to a potential president for all the same crappy reasons that the media pays the wrong kind of attention to so many women of character. Of course, I’m guilty of giving many women of character the same "wrong" attention, but I like to think I’m also focused on the content of their characters.
Sure, male politicians are also judged on their looks, no doubt about it, more and more so since Reagan, but no man would ever have such a subtle wardrobe change so thoroughly undressed by the media. I suppose I could just lighten up and finish with something about the press needing to focusing on issues such as Iraq instead of "a rack" but that would be really lame and hackish, so I won’t.
