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Feb 1 2015
Why Did Amal Clooney Get Asked About Versace While Taking On Armenian Genocide?
by Beenish Ahmed Posted on February 1, 2015 at 9:35
When a reporter jokingly told Amal Clooney that she was expected to
wear Versace to a hearing at the European Court of Human Rights on
Friday, she made a quick retort.
"I'm wearing Ede & Ravenscroft," she said referring to a company that
has been making the formal legal wear required of many judges and
lawyers in European for more than 300 years.
Clooney was at the court to challenge the appeal of a Turkish
politician who denied that Turkey carried out a genocide against
Armenians starting in 1915. Most historians, however, agree that some
1.5 million of Turkey's Armenians were either killed or forced out of
the country.
The wife of the Hollywood heartthrob has drawn attention to the
genocide which is still vehemently contested by Turkey even though a
full century ago.
A quick listen to her argument before the judges makes the case for
how absurd it was to ask her -- an international human rights attorney
-- about her fashion preferences.
"There are images of beheadings, burnt bodies, railway cars of
Armenians being herded into the desert. There are descriptions of the
Euphrates River filled with blood," she said.
But even as Clooney contends with such weighty issues, the questions
keep coming back to the superficial stuff. And that's not because of
her envious place as the wife of one George Clooney.
Women have been questioned on the utterly beside-the-point topic of
their appearances even as they, quite literally, change the world.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has topped Forbes' list of the most
powerful women in the world no less than eight times and yet, the news
outlet still had the gall to call her out on her "frumpy style."
And the media can't seem to get over the fact that she's worn the same
tunic (intermittently, of course) for 18 years.
German fashion designer Karl Lagerferld said, "Everything is wrong,"
about her look, by which he meant: "Too long pants, too tight jackets,
awful colors."
But doing everything right seems to be a problem, too.
That's something that a former foreign minister from Pakistan found
out when she accessorized with oversized Roberto Cavalli sunglasses
and a pricey -- and hard to get -- Hermes Birkin bag.
Her look grabbed headlines around the world and drew scorn at home.
"Hina Rabbani Khar story confirms belief women are great foreign
ministers & reporting on female politicians is terrible," Stephanie
Carvin, a London-based lecturer in international relations tweeted at
the time.
That's something that former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton would
likely agree with. She famously slammed a pair of interviewers from
Kyrgyztan in 2010 when they asked her, what they had cautioned, would
be a silly question.
Here's the exchange:
MODERATOR 1: Okay. Which designers do you prefer?
SECRETARY CLINTON: What designers of clothes?
MODERATOR 1: Yes.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Would you ever ask a man that question?
MODERATOR 1: Probably not. Probably not.
Male political leaders do, on occasion, get called out for their
fashion choices -- but it seems to be more rare -- and perhaps more
worthy of comment. One recent example is Prime Minister Narendra Modi
wore a suit that spelled his name in thin pinstripes when he hosted
President Barack Obama in India last week, or when a senior official
from Ghana unabashedly donned his wife's coat on a trip to Germany.
What women wear, however, seems to come up even if what they wear is
rather banal -- like say a pantsuit or required legal attire. But why?
Doug Sweet, media relations director for McGill, has one possible
explanation. He wrote back in 2008, "Male politicians, by donning the
uniform and largely taking away the issue of fashion judgments, can
then be evaluated more according to their performance and positions.
Women, who have yet to escape the fashion-judgment issue, continue to
be evaluated on those choices as well as on their platforms (not the
shoes) and comportment."
But maybe it's something more insidious than that -- a persistent
tendency to judge women -- first and foremost -- for their appearances
instead of their skills or accomplishments.
As ThinkProgress recently reported, debate heated up in another field
just this week when the bestselling author was described in an
obituary as "Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was,
nevertheless a woman of wit and warmth."
That didn't keep her from selling 30 million books, certainly, but
female politician's looks can be more damning.
Last year, study by the Women's Media Center found that no matter what
is said about a female candidate's appearance -- positive or negative --
it has a negative impact on what voters think of her.
How does that play out for international human rights lawyers working
to foster accountability for a genocide that took place a century ago?
Let's just say it might be for the best that Amal Clooney has to stick
to the requisite black robes and white collars.
Especially because, as she said in her statement in court last week,
"The stakes could not be higher for the Armenian people."
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/02/01/3617840/amal-clooney-court-attire/
Feb 1 2015
Why Did Amal Clooney Get Asked About Versace While Taking On Armenian Genocide?
by Beenish Ahmed Posted on February 1, 2015 at 9:35
When a reporter jokingly told Amal Clooney that she was expected to
wear Versace to a hearing at the European Court of Human Rights on
Friday, she made a quick retort.
"I'm wearing Ede & Ravenscroft," she said referring to a company that
has been making the formal legal wear required of many judges and
lawyers in European for more than 300 years.
Clooney was at the court to challenge the appeal of a Turkish
politician who denied that Turkey carried out a genocide against
Armenians starting in 1915. Most historians, however, agree that some
1.5 million of Turkey's Armenians were either killed or forced out of
the country.
The wife of the Hollywood heartthrob has drawn attention to the
genocide which is still vehemently contested by Turkey even though a
full century ago.
A quick listen to her argument before the judges makes the case for
how absurd it was to ask her -- an international human rights attorney
-- about her fashion preferences.
"There are images of beheadings, burnt bodies, railway cars of
Armenians being herded into the desert. There are descriptions of the
Euphrates River filled with blood," she said.
But even as Clooney contends with such weighty issues, the questions
keep coming back to the superficial stuff. And that's not because of
her envious place as the wife of one George Clooney.
Women have been questioned on the utterly beside-the-point topic of
their appearances even as they, quite literally, change the world.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has topped Forbes' list of the most
powerful women in the world no less than eight times and yet, the news
outlet still had the gall to call her out on her "frumpy style."
And the media can't seem to get over the fact that she's worn the same
tunic (intermittently, of course) for 18 years.
German fashion designer Karl Lagerferld said, "Everything is wrong,"
about her look, by which he meant: "Too long pants, too tight jackets,
awful colors."
But doing everything right seems to be a problem, too.
That's something that a former foreign minister from Pakistan found
out when she accessorized with oversized Roberto Cavalli sunglasses
and a pricey -- and hard to get -- Hermes Birkin bag.
Her look grabbed headlines around the world and drew scorn at home.
"Hina Rabbani Khar story confirms belief women are great foreign
ministers & reporting on female politicians is terrible," Stephanie
Carvin, a London-based lecturer in international relations tweeted at
the time.
That's something that former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton would
likely agree with. She famously slammed a pair of interviewers from
Kyrgyztan in 2010 when they asked her, what they had cautioned, would
be a silly question.
Here's the exchange:
MODERATOR 1: Okay. Which designers do you prefer?
SECRETARY CLINTON: What designers of clothes?
MODERATOR 1: Yes.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Would you ever ask a man that question?
MODERATOR 1: Probably not. Probably not.
Male political leaders do, on occasion, get called out for their
fashion choices -- but it seems to be more rare -- and perhaps more
worthy of comment. One recent example is Prime Minister Narendra Modi
wore a suit that spelled his name in thin pinstripes when he hosted
President Barack Obama in India last week, or when a senior official
from Ghana unabashedly donned his wife's coat on a trip to Germany.
What women wear, however, seems to come up even if what they wear is
rather banal -- like say a pantsuit or required legal attire. But why?
Doug Sweet, media relations director for McGill, has one possible
explanation. He wrote back in 2008, "Male politicians, by donning the
uniform and largely taking away the issue of fashion judgments, can
then be evaluated more according to their performance and positions.
Women, who have yet to escape the fashion-judgment issue, continue to
be evaluated on those choices as well as on their platforms (not the
shoes) and comportment."
But maybe it's something more insidious than that -- a persistent
tendency to judge women -- first and foremost -- for their appearances
instead of their skills or accomplishments.
As ThinkProgress recently reported, debate heated up in another field
just this week when the bestselling author was described in an
obituary as "Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was,
nevertheless a woman of wit and warmth."
That didn't keep her from selling 30 million books, certainly, but
female politician's looks can be more damning.
Last year, study by the Women's Media Center found that no matter what
is said about a female candidate's appearance -- positive or negative --
it has a negative impact on what voters think of her.
How does that play out for international human rights lawyers working
to foster accountability for a genocide that took place a century ago?
Let's just say it might be for the best that Amal Clooney has to stick
to the requisite black robes and white collars.
Especially because, as she said in her statement in court last week,
"The stakes could not be higher for the Armenian people."
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/02/01/3617840/amal-clooney-court-attire/