A Second Look

While I may be getting a little behind the curve here since everyone has mostly moved onto talking directly about Pearls, Politics and Power, I think that their are some things that came up in last weeks discussion that are worth reviewing in more detail once again and with the perspective that Kunin (and additional mulling over) brings to the table.

At the beginning of class last week we talked about Robin Givhan's article in the Washington Post on Elena Kagan's apparel at her Senate meetings. Since then I had been thinking a lot about the many points we brought up during class and decided to go back and review the article with a critical eye and our conversation and the readings in mind. You can read the article for yourself here if you had not taken a look at it before:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052101670.html .

This secondary review was highly beneficial to me - especially in light of the definitions of sex and gender brought up at the end of our discussion and some other elements of last weeks conversation. While looking at the article once more I gained some new perspectives:

First, in contrast to our analysis of the article as a negative portrayal from our class discussion, I found many portions of the article to be indicative of the idea that the author was trying to use a focus on appearance to analyze the political power of appearance. One line from the article in particular struck me as supporting this idea:

"People make choices about their appearance for all sorts of complicated reasons. And often, they glom on to a cliche because they find it reassuring and easy. They wear the dress of a particular social tribe because they want people to make assumptions about who they are -- because letting folks come to a conclusion on their own is often easier than having to explain."

Indeed at times Robin Givhan seems to be placing a lot of trust in the idea that image leads to political assumptions and does seem to be attempting to use that assumption to analyze Kagan's appearance in a politically relevant manner as opposed to a politically damaging or superficial one. Obviously the distinction between those two ideas hinges on very minute details and can lead to confusion and debate. It turns out that we are certainly not the only ones to have found Givhan's article worthy of debate or discussion, many blogs picked up on the article last week and has forced Givhan to defend herself against allegations of sexism. Givhan has even issued a statement indicating that she did feel that her article was sexist and saying that "the column speaks for itself." (http://mediamatters.org/strupp/201005250057)

Of course, as we discussed in class, Givhan's article and line of reasoning is particularly interesting when framed in comparison to Wilson's quotation from the section Hair, Hemlines and Husbands that Sabrina brought up at the beginning of our discussion: "Any focus on the superficial will always erode authority; the phrase "just another pretty face" is not for nothing" (Wilson, p.39).

The idea that image and appearance can be politically powerful is an important one (a position that a number of us in class agreed with), but it does seem that Wilson disagrees. I think, like many issues with image and the media, there is a thin line that exists between the discussion of physical image as politically powerful and the discussion of physical image as trivializing. I wonder if Wilson would agree with this assessment of the tenuous relationship between positive and negative treatment of image? I have heard the argument made before that no exceptions exist - any focus on what a woman in power is wearing, how they accessorized or how they style their hair immediately "erodes authority" - but I'm not sure if that is Wilson's belief. While I personally do not agree that any reference or even any large focus on image, clothing, etc. is inherently negative -- I definitely do agree that such a focus can be negative.

I think the questions we need to ask are: When does a focus on the physical turn negative? When does it begin to erode authority? When can we say that coverage is politically powerful and how does it explore that power? Is this an issue that is particularly damaging for women or is it relevant across the sexes?

While I do not claim to be totally qualified to answer all of those questions, I can make some educated guesses. I think the focus on the physical turns negative when it is used in a diminutive way. Maybe unless the physical is specifically associated with the embrace of power or it is indicative/symbolic of some more substantive power then it is not worth the focus. Physical appearance begins to erode authority and power when it replaces the more substantive qualities as the main story.

Taking some of the answers to those questions and looking at Givhan's article may change our initial understanding of it. Upon a closer look it seems as though maybe Givhan is really is trying to portray Kagan's appearance as a political choice and one that demonstrates a sort of embrace of power. However the question of how successful Givhan is at achieving a meaningful analysis of Kagan's implementation of these apparel politics is important to consider.

The title in itself, Elena Kagan goes on Supreme Court confirmation offensive in drab D.C. clothes, demonstrates the tension between the utility of image for political purposes and the diminutive. The use of the word "offensive" in the title alludes to the idea that maybe Kagan is using her appearance as a political power play. But does the emphasis on the "Drab D.C. Clothes" work to undermine the power of making a statement with your physical appearance? Perhaps anchoring that title with an adjective like "drab" really does undermine any of the power afforded by the word offensive. I feel as though their is a chance that Givhan was using that title to conjure up the two different understandings of the function of image in politics.

Delving beyond the headline, the first three paragraphs seem to go out of their way to mention male supreme court nominees. The first sentence of the second paragraph starts with "The other men and women" (note which sex is listed first - the reversal of which being something that Kunin makes reference to in her example of the kind of subtle implementation of female authority) and the next paragraph starts with a reference to Justice Alito. Later on in the article they also address the fact that style and Supreme Court justices may just be ideas that are at odds with one another.

Givhan attempts to discount the fact that this is a gendered argument by posing a hypothetical situation of a male nominee with too short pants and woman in expensive designer clothes:

"How discombobulated would folks be if a male nominee walked the Hill wearing a Thom Browne suit with trousers that ended at the ankles or if a woman strode purposefully down the marble corridors in a pair of platform Christian Louboutin heels and a Marni sack dress? There'd be nothing profoundly inappropriate with any of that other than the images wouldn't square with the preconceived notion that sobriety equals intellect. Bland equals responsible. Matronly equals trustworthy."

Here we have direct evidence of Givhan attempting to point out the social cues and mores that fashion and clothing represent. It seems as though Givhan is simply trying to use Elena Kagan as a current example of this power - not simply a superficial denunciation of her "drab" style.

At the same time, although Givhan's article may speak for itself it cannot be examined in a vacuum. Specifically Kagan herself has been the target of other articles that could be interpreted as superficial or not relating to her politics or capability to serve as a Supreme Court justice -- i.e. the early articles and media hype surrounding Kagan's sexuality. I think it is possible that Givhan's article would not have gained so much negative traction if she had treaded a little softer (i.e. avoiding loaded words like "drab") and perhaps exhibited more caution especially for an individual who has already received similar criticism.

Ultimately, I think that Givhan's article was channelling some of the lingering questions and interest in Kagan's sexuality. By diverting the focus from sexuality to fashion, Givhan may have been doing everyone a service by giving people an outlet that they are more familiar with discussing in public (i.e. women's roles and clothing) which could lead to a more fruitful dicussion of some of the more unchartered territory like the possibility of an openly LGBTQ person serving in some important political position, an issue which Kunin brings up and one that I think is incredibly important for us to consider more detail in order open up the possibility of running for office to any/all/every kinds of young women.

What do you all think?

-AMD