Charles Moore asks in this week’s Spectator what the ‘right looks’ are for a leadership contender, comparing Margaret Thatcher’s appeal to Tory backbenchers to the appeal of Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall in the Labour contest. The obvious answer, of course, is that the ‘right look’ involves wearing clothes for working in the House of Commons, rather than a diving suit or paint-smattered overalls. It’s a ‘look’ Cooper, Kendall and their male rivals Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Burnham pull off on a daily basis, so presumably the question is quite easy to answer. I must confess what when I first read Charles’s column, I wondered why he was posing the question at all.
And yet male politicians also worry about whether they ‘look’ like leaders. George Osborne had a hair cut and went on a punishing diet to look right. Boris Johnson’s tousled hair is part of his brand. Eric Pickles is mocked for his weight, as is David Cameron when he switches from work clothes to a wet suit. Andy Burnham has had to clarify that his eyelashes really are the ones he was born with and have never seen a mascara brush.
The difference is that men’s looks are just considered part of the package they are offering, whereas women often seem to be judged on it before anyone listens to what they’re actually saying. Ask a female politician what the feedback on her last Newsnight interview was and she will say that most people on social media were talking about her legs and hair, not what she had to say about foreign policy. This is regardless of how interested said female politician is in her appearance: the comments flow whether or not a woman spends anywhere near as much time and money as some of her male colleagues on her appearance. It is just assumed that it matters more for women.
This sort of thing matters just a little less each time a woman smashes the glass ceiling, as it shows anyone who still thinks otherwise that women are capable of anything, though Labour doesn’t look as though it will be electing its first female leader this time around. In the meantime, Cooper and Kendall and their colleagues will still face questions about whether they have the right ‘look’ even though the answer is ‘yes’.
One of Liz Kendall’s finest moments in this leadership contest was when she told a male journalist to ‘fuck off’ for asking during an interview about why she would be the best Labour leader how much she weighed. Her weight, hair, jacket and so on should matter no more than those of her male colleagues. I suspect that very few who have a vote in this contest think anything different.
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