Did President Obama Insult Kamala Harris?

If Kamala Harris had taken offense when the president called her “the best-looking attorney general,” that would have been news.

When was the last time a woman felt insulted at being complimented on her looks?

We have no indication that Harris found the president’s words demeaning or degrading.

The feminist thought police had another idea. Women who happily forgave Bill Clinton his serial sexual predations were outraged that Barack Obama made mention of the good looks of an accomplished professional woman.

Of course, they were defending feminist ideology more than female honor. More importantly, they were trying to establish the right and the wrong way for men to think and talk about women.

If you ask them, the thought police had no such intention. All you need do is read the latest directive from the Ministry of Correct Speech you will see, in the fine print, that men are still allowed to notice a woman’s good looks if she is going out on the town.

But then, when your highly accomplished significant female other is dressed to kill for a dance party sponsored by her company, are you or are you not allowed to tell her how beautiful she looks.

Some will say that men are allowed to say so in private, but not in public. But when you meet a woman at a meeting or a convention, and there are other people within hearing distance, is it insulting and humiliating to tell her how good she looks? 

If, for some reason the woman in question does not like having attention drawn to her looks, might she find a better reply than to go into grievance mode. 

If a woman makes an effort to try to look her best in a public event, why would it be insulting to notice?

Unfortunately, life does not take place in the fine print. Men who have heard that the president of the Unites States offered an abject apology to a woman he said was very good looking will get the message that women are offended by compliments.

More than a few males will decide that it’s not worth the trouble to differentiate between permissible and impermissible compliments. They will not want to offend women or to expose themselves to the ire of the thought police so they will take the one sure position and say nothing about how women look.

What is so wrong about telling a professional woman how good she looks? One Joan Walsh fulminated that Obama, was making Harris into an ornament. I assume that she was referring to the kind you hang on Christmas trees.

I have no idea how Walsh got from “best-looking” to Christmas tree ornament. I don’t want to know. Now, however, I find it difficult to respect Joan Walsh’s intelligence. The judgment has nothing to do with her looks.

Others who believe that the president made an egregious error have offered a Neo-Nietzschean explanation. They argue that high public office, like just about everything else, is about the exercise of power. To call a powerful woman beautiful is to take away her power by seeing her in a more aesthetic and more feminine universe. These thinkers would have it that she might want to be beautiful in the boudoir but she does not want to be seen as beautiful in the board room.

Then again, if you think POTUS as a powerful male, what does it tell us when a motley crew of feminist scolds can extract an abject apology from him in the space of a day?

Those who believe that Joan Walsh et al. do not speak for feminism or women will have some difficulty explaining why the POTUS felt a need to apologize to a bunch of unrepresentative kooks.

Serious thinkers would do well not to take Nietzsche as gospel truth. High public officials do exercise power, but they also have authority and responsibility, prestige and status. And they are called public servants.

If you think of it in terms of power you are using distinctly masculine references. Even in a time when everyone is running scared of the Ministry of Correct Speech, people speak of accomplished women as accomplished women. They even speak of strong women, but it is rare that they speak of powerful women. No one ever says that a woman is, for example, impotent.

The arguments against Obama’s spontaneous expression have been strange indeed. I have been reliably informed that Ministry of Correct Speech guidelines will only allow you to say that an accomplished woman looks good if you would say the same thing about Hillary Clinton or John McCain.

Perhaps those are not the best examples, but still the grievance mongers are arguing that when a woman walks into the world of business or politics, when she gains status and authority in the world of business or politics she must leave her womanhood at the door.

This makes no sense. Recently, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was in the news and on the opinion pages. If you have a moment, check out the cover picture on her book.

Don't you think she's good-looking? Apparently she suffers no gender confusion and does not feel a need to assert that she is just like the other guys.

Being a woman does not prevent her from doing her job. In some situations it can be an asset.

But, Sandberg knows something that the feminist scolds do not know: you will never gain respect if you pretend to be something you are not.

In fact, if you refuse to recognize that a woman is a still a woman when she is in the boardroom, you saying that she becomes someone else when she steps into the business world. 

When did you ever see Margaret Thatcher look anything but womanly? True enough, Lady Thatcher had leadership problems that were a function of her gender. Still, she was a great political leader. I cannot imagine her feeling aggrieved over a compliment to her looks.

I think it fair to say that Lady Thatcher took pride in her appearance, especially in suits that were, at once, suitable and womanly.

In the midst of this brouhaha one pundit dared mention that it takes time and effort for a woman to look good. That being the case, if no one is allowed to tell  a woman how good she looks, even when she is at work, she might easily be offended at the slight.

I do not need to tell you that women spend a great deal of time and energy and money putting together a look that will be right for who they are and where they are.  To imagine that a woman on the job does not want to present a womanly professional appearance is perfect nonsense.

We all know that some feminist scolds, in the person of Naomi Wolf,  have denounced the fashion and cosmetic industries for keep women subjected to the male gaze. This suggests that the women who voluntarily try to look their best are dupes of the patriarchy.

But, isn’t it insulting to tell women that they are dupes?

When a woman mentioned that Kamala Harris really does look very good and that she must have put in some serious effort on her appearance, wasn’t she saying that the president was being courteous in offering her a well-deserved compliment? If no one had noticed she would have been within her rights to feel unappreciated and even insulted. After all, no woman will appreciate the implication that she looks like a man.