Following suit

Labour MP for Ilam Sarah Pallet (left), with Canta writer Charlotte Thornton (right).

Think of a woman in politics. Is she wearing a pantsuit?

Probably. I guess you could have thought of Mary Todd Lincoln in a hoop skirt and a bonnet. But chances are, Hillary Clinton, Jacinda Ardern or Angela Merkel came to mind. All three have spent much of their political careers donning the unofficial uniform of the professional woman.

The pantsuit, the legendary pairing of slacks with a matching blazer, was first developed after the First World War during a boom in more masculine clothing for women. They didn’t truly catch on until the sixties, when Yves Saint Laurent created an androgynous take on a tuxedo brilliantly named, “Le Smoking.” A title I’ll always be mad that I didn’t think of first.

Through the seventies and eighties, pantsuits rose in popularity with women in business, commonly called “power suits.” But for female politicians, dresses and skirt sets remained most popular.

During her tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher was rarely seen in anything but a mid-length skirt and a tightly buttoned jacket. Her outfits were far closer what the Queen was wearing than they were to Melanie Griffith’s executive chic in Working Girl.

For many years, women were banned from wearing trousers on the United States Senate floor. The ban was finally lifted in 1993 when two female senators dared to wear pants and started a trend amongst the female staff. Martha Pope, the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms, was the person to amend the rule, allowing women on the Senate floor to wear trousers… as long as they wore a jacket.

The pantsuit had long been ready for its political moment, and here it was.

During her tenure as First Lady, Hillary Clinton soft-launched her pantsuit era by sprinkling in a few pairs of trousers with more traditional First Lady-ish dresses. By the time she was elected as a Senator in 2001 she was closely associated with the pantsuit, and during her 2016 presidential run she was basically never seen without one.

The pantsuit provides an opportunity for female politicians to closely mirror the attire of male politicians. Visually, it makes some headway in leveling the playing field.

Jacinda Ardern on the Late Show in her time as Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Sarah Pallett, MP for Ilam, says that for male politicians, the suit is utterly dependable. “It’s dead easy, I mean, you know, they just have to have a dark suit, a shirt, and a tie. And that’s it, they’re done… and that’s not true of women.”

In her political work Sarah wears both pantsuits and dresses, and she has a favourite skirt suit. She says that in Aotearoa politics, “there is a dress code which is broadly ‘business attire’,” describing the typical clothing choices as “smart but not formal-formal.”

Sarah says that female politicians are under far greater scrutiny than male politicians regarding their appearance. “Having to focus on what we’re wearing adds another job for us to do before we get out and start work in the morning – which doesn’t cut into our work time, it cuts into our personal time.”

She mentions a 2017 interview with Hillary Clinton, in which Clinton stated that she had spent six hundred hours – twenty-five days – on hair, makeup, and clothing. Sarah says that those days don’t come out of Clinton’s work hours, so “she has to absorb that extra time into her personal time – potentially downtime, potentially family time.”

The reliability of the suit, and the expectation of minimal-to-no makeup, means that male politicians always have a little more time to themselves – a resource already in short supply in political work.

“It’s something that we have to think about that our male counterparts don’t.”

The pantsuit is sometimes considered the safe option for women in politics – but whatever it is you choose to wear; it’s going to get criticised.

British tabloids have a history of slapping slangy headlines over images of female politicians. When Theresa May became the British Prime Minister, the Sun’s front-page headline read “HEEL, BOYS,” referring to May’s favourite leopard-print heels.

The following year, when she met with Nicola Sturgeon regarding the UK’s departure from the EU, the Daily Mail chose the headline “Forget Brexit, who won Legs-it!”

Daily Mail 28th March, 2017 featuring Nicola Sturgeon (left) and British Prime Minister Theresa May (right).

Just before Kamala Harris was about to be sworn in as Vice President, she appeared on the cover of Vogue. Her clothing was a little unexpected: she wore casual blazer and slim trousers which didn’t match, along with a pair of Converse.

Kamala had dressed herself, but expected the photo to appear inside the issue, not on the cover. The look was too approachable for a Vice President – the first-ever female Vice President.

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez faced a similar issue, in the other direction: she was lambasted for wearing a $1,000 suit on the cover of Vanity Fair, accused of flaunting wealth while promoting socialism. AOC didn’t even own the outfit in question; it was lent to her for the shoot.

Sarah says people are “not kind” when discussing the appearances of female politicians.

“They’re not focusing on, ‘oh hey, look, such-and-such looked awesome today’,” Sarah says.

“It’s always ‘oh my gosh, she’s wearing the same suit, she’s wearing the same shirt, she’s wearing the same dress’.”

The pantsuit is comfortable and classic, which has helped it become so popular, but its most important function is its invisibility: since it closely replicates the ubiquitous suits worn by male politicians, it asks viewers and listeners to focus on the political work being done – like they focus on for men.

“The standard is not the same for men as it is for women. But this is true in so many areas,” Sarah says. “We do need to move away from an atmosphere where we are critiquing and criticising women for things that are wholly superficial.”

While fashion can tell us a great deal about lawmakers and their intentions, the unfair scrutiny placed on female politicians needs to end. AOC’s lipstick got more media coverage than the details of her Green New Deal submission, and Theresa May’s heels were far less crucial to course of world history than her Grenfell response was.

“Society and the media do make it a focus. And I would just love it if that changed,” Sarah says.

“We’ll get there.”