Washington Post blog: Let the Cleavage Conversation Begin

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/07/27/clinton_cashing_in_on_cleavage.html#more

-- Howard Kurtz with Anne E. Kornblut

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has sent out a fundraising letter calling a Washington Post fashion writer's column on Clinton's cleavage "grossly inappropriate" and asking donors "to take a stand against this kind of coarseness and pettiness in American culture."

One week after the piece, by fashion writer Robin Givhan, took note of the Democratic candidate's low neckline during a speech on the Senate floor, senior Clinton adviser Ann Lewis urged donors to help fight treatment she termed "insulting."



Givhan, who won a Pulitzer Prize last year, said she disagreed "that there was anything in the column that was coarse, insulting or belittling. It was a piece about a public person's appearance on the Senate floor that was surprising because of the location and because of the person. It's disingenuous to think that revealing cleavage, any amount of it, in that kind of situation is a non-issue.

"It's obviously not the most important thing in the campaign. It's obviously not the most important thing Hillary Clinton has ever done by any means."

Stories about the appearance of candidates, from Al Gore's earth-tones wardrobe to John Edwards's $400 haircut to a bathing-suit shot of Barack Obama in a People spread on "Beach Babes," have long been an entertaining sideshow. But since no journalist has plunged into this particular territory, given the exclusively male nature of past White House contests, Givhan's Style column has sparked plenty of reaction, much of it negative. Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman wrote today that Givhan "managed to make a media mountain out of a half-inch valley."
Lewis, who has complained to Post ombudsman Deborah Howell, said she was "appalled" by the column but initially dismissed it as "an inside-the-Beltway story."

"I didn't realize the attention and the anger it was setting off nationally ..... Women either read it or heard about it. They were indignant on Hillary's behalf and also on their own." Lewis says she has not discussed the matter with the New York senator.

FULL story at link.

[LadyJD]

1. Understandable Reaction

Women are sensitive to this issue because one of the facets of gender discrimination is that women are judged inordinately on their appearance. In addition, some men (a majority, I believe) suspect and resent it when they perceive a woman as trying to manipulate them through sexual power. So the "cleavage controversy" isn't just about fashion sense.

Women are also angered, I think, because this particular outfit should not have attracted notice. It is not provocative, or even close. Do women politicians always have to wear shirts buttoned up to the neck in order to not be critiqued on their fashion sense? If a man were to only appear in buttoned up shirts (up to the neck), I believe he would be called "uptight." If men should relax in their fashion sense (i.e. Al Gore's earth tones), women should be able to do so too.

[partylessinOhio]

2. I don't remember Mrs. Clinton ever wearing a neckline that low before.

What prompted her to wear that particular outfit? Was it planned or was the v-necked top ill-fitting, too large and slipped lower than it was meant to?

Just wondering...

[Catherine Vincent]

8. Here's a pic with cleavage...

It's from DUer William769

[MidwestTransplant]

3. Yes let it

This is Fred Thompson's wife BTW

[Joe Bacon]

5. PRECISELY!

Wonder why the Whoreshington Post don't peep about Fred's teen queen!

[Bake]

7. Then it's fair to ask whether Jeri has implants.

I mean, really, do we want a woman with plastic boobs in the White House? Fred's already one huge plastic boob ...

Bake

[MasonJar]

4. This is what we get so that the Post does not have to "post" news

of merit.

[monmouth]

6. Why are there no comments re some of the male candidates who

dress as if they just rolled out of bed, rumpled, mis-fitted, etc. This kind of crap really, really annoys me. Why is it that Senator Clinton has to project a "certain image" but rarely a discussion on the males and their image? Gawd, I wish these "style" people would just grow up!!