Former congresswoman and Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann very nearly had a moment of feminist solidarity with Hillary Clinton yesterday when she called out the double standard that women politicians face when it comes to their appearance. Almost.
“For a man, it’s like a three-minute shower and you put on your suit and tie and away you go,” Bachmann told radio host Rusty Humphries yesterday. “For women, literally, to do hair and makeup is an hour.” Bachmann said that when she was running for president, she “would get criticized more than anything” for her appearance, recalling one time when she was barraged with criticism for the length of her nails at a presidential debate.
“So, I mean, like, for Hillary Clinton, are you kidding, they focus group what she wears in these three debates, no question,” Bachmann said.
“I’m just saying, well, her, she looks like a Mao Zedong in every one of her outfits, those are terrible,” Humphries responded.
“Yeah, but that’s by design,” Bachmann said. “I mean, who is she? I mean, she is an economic Marxist so she feels very much at home in those Mao suits.”
The former congresswoman then returned to her point that the relentless and often petty criticism of women politicians’ appearances “is a big deal.”
