Time's Hillary Clinton Cover Proves We Really Need A New Way To Depict Powerful Women

Time's Hillary Cover Proves We Need A New Way To Depict Powerful Women

“Powerful Pantsuit Lady Crushes Hapless Men With Her Heel,” may as well have been the headline of Time’s latest cover story on Hillary Clinton’s will-she-or-won’t-she presidential run. At least, that’s the impression one would get by glancing at the image.

hillary time cover

TIME’s stock cover photo is lazy sexism at its best. As has been pointed out, it seems to have been plucked right from the slides of The Cut’s November piece on “Feminism According To Stock Photography,” and as author Jessica Valenti tweeted, it's just “the latest in a long line of ‘feminist shoe crushes man’” images. (It's worth checking out the compilation of such stock photos Valenti has up on her blog to get an idea of how common this trope really is.)

Isn’t there any way to discuss female power without resorting to stiletto metaphors and flailing, helpless dudes? For the love of all things good, can't we be a little more imaginative next time we try to represent a powerful woman? Let's leave the man-crushing, kitten heels behind. If we don’t, it’s going to be a very long road to 2016.

Plus, there are endless amounts of awesome Hillary Clinton photos. Here are three that could have easily been paired with the headline “Can Anyone Stop Hillary?”...

1
Getty Images
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enjoys a relax moment at Cafe Havana in Cartagena, Colombia on April 15, 2012. Clinton is in Cartagena to attend the VI Summit of the Americas which closes on Sunday.
2
AP
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, center, reacts before the 2nd East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the 45th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, July 12, 2012.
3
AP
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton works from a desk inside a C-17 military plane upon her departure from Malta, in the Mediterranean Sea, bound for Tripoli, Libya, Tuesday Oct.18, 2011.

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