Hillary Clinton’s Cleavage: Media Still Reflect Gender Bias

By Brigitte L. Nacos

cleav’age (noun)
the hollow visible between a woman’s breast
when a low-cut garment is worn
(Decarta Dictionary)

In the Washington Post story that triggered the controversy, Robin Givhan wrote, “There was cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2. It belonged to Sen. Hillary Clinton. She was talking on the Senate floor about the burdensome cost of higher education. She was wearing a rose-colored blazer over a black top. The neckline sat low on her chest and had a subtle V-shape. The cleavage registered after only a quick glance. No scrunch-faced scrutiny was necessary. There wasn't an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable.” Today, the Post's ombudsperson defends the cleavage article (For much cruder gender bias in cable talk shows, see a recent Project for Excellence in Journalism" study).
Sean Aday and James Devitt opened their study “Style Over Substance” on newspaper coverage of female candidates and in particularly Elizabeth Dole’s short effort to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, with quotations from a newspaper column that was published in the Denver Post shortly after Geraldina Ferraro’s nomination as the first female vice-presidential candidate of a major party. These are some of the points that columnist Woodrow Paige made at the time:

Ferraro has nicer legs than any previous vice-presidential candidate.
She’s a blonde. So the most looming question will be, ‘Does she or doesn’t she?'
Will she be the first vice president to enter a wet T-shirt contest?”

Based on their case study, Aday and Devitt concluded in 2000 that there was still gender bias in the media. In particular, they found that females received less issue coverage than their male counterparts but more personal coverage which included their appearance and attire. Judging from the media’s recent coverage of Hillary Clintons cleavage, this sort of gender bias is alive and well—although some reporters and editors have become aware enough of this traditional gender bias in the media that they write occasionally about the appearance of male politicians and candidates as well, typically about their hair cuts and styles.

Reporting about a female candidate’s cleavage is a no-no for senior advisor to the Clinton campaign, Ann Lewis. As reported in the New York Times, she wrote in a fund-raising e-mail, “Frankly, focusing on women’s bodies instead of their ideas is insulting.” I agree. Moreover, Ms. Lewis was right to mention an incident during last week’s CNN debate, when the candidates were asked to comment on the competitor to their left. John Edwards joked that he had reservations about Hillary Clinton’s coral jacket, while Barack Obama found nothing wrong with it. Hard to imagine anyone of the candidates joking about male opponents’ jackets!

In today’s Washington Post, the newspaper’s ombudsman Deborah Howell--strange that she isn’t called ombudswoman--, writes the following in support of the original cleavage story. “There has to be a balance in campaign coverage. Readers deserve substance, but they also want to know who these people are, about their families and their lives.”
That is certainly true. But what does a female candidate’s attire that did not reveal “an unseemly amount of cleavage” add to understanding who she is and how she and her family live?

Comments

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We have a true authority on "unseemly" amounts of cleavage in the person of Fred Thompson, whose wife Jeri wrote the book on C. Let's ask him.

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