Former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift brought up the difficulty women face in gaining leadership positions in politics: Their words and capacities are simply not the focus of the general public. She says the real focus goes immediately to Hair, Hemlines and Husbands! She is undoubtedly correct in this statement.
Consider this phenomenon. There are men in major positions of respect and power in our national politics, some of them for many decades, and some have had "bad hair days" for years; others have no hair at all. Is it mentioned in any public way? Not typically. But let a woman get up to speak and see how much her hair gets discussed above the substance of her speech.
Expect Hillary to run and along with this, expect the media and general public focus to often center far more on appearance than on substance. Some candidate running against her will be just another male in the same, drab business suit we all accept by habit. He may even have an ugly comb-over that flies laughably in the breeze and he may have a wife who rarely shows herself at all for whatever reason. But it will be Hillary's hair, clothing and marital partner that will be the continual topics of discussion.
Even many who consider themselves "liberal" in today's world still trudge along in the mud of out-dated traditional attitudes toward gender.
Personally, I look forward to eight years of dramatically (and often) changed hair styles along with varieties of skirts, pants-suits or anything else, and seeing the occasional glimpse of a very public male figure now in the second-fiddle role in the white house. But my focus will be on how she handles the mammoth job of the presidency.
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