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MARY F. CALVERT
Kay Granger's face is called the most feminine in the House.
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The Fort Worth Star-Telegram featured a story Saturday titled “If there’s a Republican look, she has it.” According to this article by Maria Recio, Anna M. Tinsley and Scott Nishimura, U.S. female lawmakers with “stereotypical feminine facial features” are more likely to be Republican that Democrat. UCLA researchers scanned photos of various female politicians, compared them to “facial norms,” and then asked undergraduate students to guess the House members’ party affiliation. The study stated, the students’ “‘judgments were 98 percent more likely to be accurate for women with the highest rankings for femininity.’” In the Star-Telegram’s coverage of this UCLA study, the writers were sure to mention that Fort Worth’s own Kay Granger scored the highest on this femininity test. However, why was this local newspaper so enthralled with and proud of having the representative with the most feminine face? How can a group of researchers even determine what exactly is “feminine” and what is not? Furthermore, why is it important whether or not a politician has feminine facial features? It is important because the media makes it important through its coverage and support of studies such as this one.
In the media, female politicians and women in general are often depicted only in terms of their looks as opposed to their actual political contributions. This trend held true in the early 80’s when the first female Vice President nominee, Geraldine Ferraro, was introduced by a news anchor as a “size 6.” Then again in 2008, Sarah Palin was featured more in the news for wearing a pair of red patent leather peep-toe pumps to the Vice Presidential debate than she was for the ideas she portrayed during the discussion. Still today, as seen in the article by the Star-Telegram, women are continually depicted in the media based on their appearance. It is a vicious cycle in which the media only features politicians in terms of their womanly traits, making that the most important aspect in the mind of the public. Therefore, the result is more public focus on these politicians’ physical features as opposed to their political ideals, as seen in the UCLA research study. When a prominent university then continues this interest through a news-worthy research study, the media features once again solely the “feminine” side of women, and the cycle continues. If the public continues to fuel this stereotype by engaging in and contributing to the interest in mere physicality as opposed to morality, then the media will never cease to sexualize women. If we as the audience wish for better and demand better by refusing to support media that stereotypes women, then we may hope to see some change in the future. Until then, however, we will be caught in this cycle of stereotypes and misrepresentations and a world where our government representatives are judged more by the femininity of their facial features than the merit of their political ideals.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/10/13/4333692/if-theres-a-republican-look-she.html#storylink=cpy
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