The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Some Thoughts on Pigs in Lipstick

I'm trying to get work done on something else—a piece of writing and thinking not related to the Alaskan body-snatcher who seems to have invaded our collective brain—but my mind keeps returning to the trivial campaign flap of the day, this flurry of feigned outrage about "lipstick on a pig." Rachael's right that the Obama campaign's unfortunate choice of this phrase to describe the cynical repackaging of John McCain's economic plan opens the Dems up to charges of sexism. But I honestly can't decide: Is the use of the phrase, even if it does include a veiled jab at Palin, really sexist? After all, this is a woman who, in a much-praised convention speech (now being endlessly repeated on the stump) referred to herself as a "pit bull with lipstick." Isn't Obama's repurposing of a related metaphor just pointing out that, beneath that lipstick, the emperor's pit bull has no clothes?

As is being widely blogged today, McCain used the same figure of speech to deride Hillary's health care plan back in May. (The Christian Science Monitor reports that Dick Cheney also used it to demean Kerry's war record in 2004, and that Obama used it earlier in the campaign to criticize Bush's Iraq policy.) As far as I can recall, the Clinton campaign, which was never slow to seize upon opportunities for umbrage, let the phrase pass unnoticed (if anyone has a clip to refute that claim, please send along). Then again, McCain did preface his comparison with the sentence "I don't like to use this term." Why not? What would his disclaimer mean, if not that the phrase was somehow offensive to Hillary?

Pigs and pit bulls: two animals popularly considered to be unpleasant (though both can actually make smart and loving pets!), both repackaged with a slapped-on coat of Revlon (personally, I like Cherries in the Glow). The difference, of course, is that the pit-bull joke puts an admirable spin on the image of the dolled-up beast: Pit bulls are to be admired for their toughness and tenacity (and lipstick only makes them cuter!) while a pig is just a pig, cosmetics or no. What do the rest of you XX-ers think: If the Hillary campaign had cried sexism over the same porcine imagery, would you have given it more or less credence? And would you rather compare yourself to a dog, or have someone else compare your ideas to a pig?