Saluting the president's "star litigatrix"

White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler --
Sorry, no shoe shots

"When you take a woman who has risen to a remarkable position, serving as the lawyer to the President of the United States of America, and you call her a “litigatrix” in “stunning 4-inch bright pink stiletto spikes,” you diminish her, her accomplishments, and all women."

-- John Aravosis, in an Americablog post, "Wash Post runs sexist
story about White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler’s shoes"

by Ken

"Would the Washington Post," Americablog's John Aravosis asks, "write a story about Dan Pfeiffer’s “fabulous shoes”?

Doubtful.

But they sure did write one about White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler’s Manolo Blahniks.

The White House counsel, for any who are unaware, is the President’s lawyer. It’s a huge job.

Particularly interesting about the Post story is first that it’s written by a woman – and yes, Virginia, women can write sexist articles too.

John Points out "that a lot of the sexist observations in the story are actually quotes from other papers," but not for the purpose of showing them up but of finding them "cute and punny."

Such as the one referring to Ruemmler as a ”star litigatrix”? Get it? Litigatrix, like dominatrix. Because she’s a female lawyer and good at her job, so she’s like a mean hooker who beats you with chains while having sex.

Oh the funny!

John has some thoughts about the role of sexism in the fact that "society is more interested in female than male fashion is sexism, and allows:

Now, you could argue that Ruemmler is daring to be her own woman. That she doesn’t feel the pressure to look and act like a man in order to succeed in a man’s world. It’s a point that former Planned Parenthood head Gloria Feldt made to me in reaction to this story this morning:

As a fan of red Stuart Weitzmans myself, I say good for Kathryn Reummler for demonstrating power, smarts, and leadership can come in hot pink stilettos. Just as Hillary proved beyond any doubt that power, smarts, and leadership can come in a turquoise pantsuit as surely as in navy pinstripes, women today are defining our own terms of professional engagement.

But while Ruemmler, like Hillary Clinton and Gloria Feldt, isn’t afraid to embrace her femininity, stories like this are not about embracing self-empowered women like Kathryn Ruemmler. They’re about belittling them.

And that, at its core, is my problem with articles like this. While it might be interesting what shoes someone is wearing, if you’re into that kind of thing, the article itself reinforces the larger problem of sexism women face in society.

And, John points out, "It’s the same with articles about gay people."

We’d complained for years about how newspapers, and TV news, always loved to show photos of drag queens or mostly-naked men in leather, when writing about gay rights. Now, from the newspaper’s perspective, some gays are drag queens, and some gays do paradearound mostly-naked in leather. But most don’t. And more importantly, the image reinforces a stereotype rather than adding nuance, or insight, to the actual story accompanying it. The photo was chosen to grab the reader, not to further the story.

By using a photo of a drag queen or a leather guy in every single gay-related story, reporters were using a kernel of truth to reinforce a larger prejudice. And that, I would argue – having a news story mis-educate a reader – is the very opposite of journalism.

John concludes with the observation I put at the top of this post:

When you take a woman who has risen to a remarkable position, serving as the lawyer to the President of the United States of America, and you call her a “litigatrix” in “stunning 4-inch bright pink stiletto spikes,” you diminish her, her accomplishments, and all women.

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