It’s no secret that Congress has a pretty rigid dress code. Men have to wear a suit and tie. Women have to keep their shoulders covered on the Senate floor; if they’re wearing slacks, they have to pair them with a suit and jacket.
The real reason conservative critics love talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s clothes
Ocasio-Cortez’s political critics often disparage her clothes. They’re really worried about her policies.
For a new member of Congress, breaking these rules could mean not being taken seriously by your peers — or worse, get you kicked out of the Senate floor or House chambers.
But as Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — the rising Democratic star from New York City known for her insurgent campaign against incumbent Joe Crowley in which she painted herself as a working-class outsider — learned this week, following the rules won’t shield you from criticism, either.
On Thursday, Eddie Scarry, a media writer at the conservative Washington Examiner, tweeted a photo of the representative-elect walking down a hallway. “Hill staffer sent me this pic of Ocasio-Cortez they took just now,” Scarry wrote in the tweet, which has since been deleted. “I’ll tell you something: that jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles.”
This is in reference to the fact that on the campaign trail, Ocasio-Cortez represented herself as a political outsider who not only wanted to fight for people who were struggling to make ends meet, but who knew what it was like to be a person struggling to make ends meet.
“I’m an educator, an organizer, a working-class New Yorker,” she said in her first campaign ad, where she also highlighted her Bronx upbringing and time spent working as a bartender. “It’s time for one of us.”
Scarry’s tweet quickly sparked backlash, with most people criticizing him for implying that people who “struggle” can’t wear jackets or coats. (There’s also no way of knowing how much that particular jacket or coat cost, or where Ocasio-Cortez purchased her outfit.)
In a follow-up tweet, Scarry said he was suggesting that Ocasio-Cortez looked “well put together — ELEGANT EVEN,” and that his comment was taken out of context. (Scarry did not respond to request for comment.)
Despite his claims that his tweet was taken out of context, the underlying message in Scarry’s tweet is clear: If people are really from working-class backgrounds, they can’t afford to look “well put together” or “elegant.”
And for Ocasio-Cortez — the youngest woman ever elected to Congress and a self-proclaimed democratic socialist — dressing well can be a lose-lose situation. If she doesn’t do it, she’ll be criticized for being inappropriate or not taking her new role as a politician seriously; if she does, she’s accused of betraying her leftist bona fides.
Ocasio-Cortez is by no means the first woman in politics to face criticism for her clothing choices — Hillary Clinton was often mocked for her pantsuits, for example — but the backlash to what Ocasio-Cortez wears often has more to do with her politics than with the clothing itself.
In September, after Interview magazine published a conversation between her and actress Kerry Washington, some conservatives took issue with the outfit she wore in the photo shoot: a green suit by Uruguayan designer Gabriela Hearst and a pair of black Manolo Blahnik stilettos. The outfit, which Interview borrowed for the shoot, reportedly cost around $3,500.
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who pretends to be a champion of the people … just posed in a photoshoot with a $3,500 outfit, $625 shoes, all while saying the rich have too much power and that socialism hasn’t been tried,” tweeted Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA. “The rising star of the Democratic Party has expensive tastes for a socialist,” commentator Katie Pavlich said on Fox & Friends. “I mean, I want a $600 pair of shoes. I think she should redistribute it.”
And after the newly elected Congress member said she couldn’t afford rent in a Washington, DC, apartment in an interview with the New York Times — because she was barred from working before her term began but also couldn’t take a salary until she started working — Fox News correspondent Ed Henry claimed she could have used her savings to pay her rent until her term began.
“Some of those [photo] shoots she had during the campaign, she had these multi-thousand dollar outfits that could pay a month’s rent in Washington, DC,” Henry said. (It’s worth noting that most magazines will borrow clothing for shoots, and that the people being photographed don’t usually get to keep said clothing.)
Earlier this year, a conservative radio host also tweeted a photo of Ocasio-Cortez’s childhood home in the Yorktown Heights suburb in an attempt to prove she wasn’t really a member of the working class. “This is the Yorktown Heights (very nice area) home @Ocasio2018 grew up in before going off to Ivy League Brown University. A far cry from the Bronx hood upbringing she’s selling.” (Ocasio-Cortez went to Boston University, not Brown University.)
The message implied here is twofold: Not only is Ocasio-Cortez lying about her working-class background, but she’s living large while espousing democratic socialist policies. By painting Ocasio-Cortez as a hypocrite, Scarry and other critics are suggesting that when she talks about wealth redistribution, she’s really talking about enriching herself with other people’s money. (Fox News recently said she and some of the other women of color recently elected to Congress have “radical new Democratic ideas” like abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a.k.a. ICE, and a green New Deal.)
These attempts to out Ocasio-Cortez as someone pretending to be working-class also reveal a deeper, more sinister disdain for the working class. If her critics are to be believed, owning professional clothing and growing up in a suburb mean that someone can’t possibly be struggling. It doesn’t matter where the clothing was purchased or how much the house cost; what matters is whether someone looks “poor.” (On the subject of working-class pretenders, though, plenty of politicians with six- and seven-figure net worths do try to downplay their wealth; few are criticized for doing so.)
This isn’t just about Ocasio-Cortez. The underlying message here is that if working people own anything beyond the bare minimum, then they’re not really struggling. (Remember the 2011 Fox News report about how 99 percent of poor families have refrigerators, and 54 percent own cell phones?) It points to a culture in which people who can’t afford things like health care or housing are blamed for their inability to do so, instead of the blame falling on the policies, and politicians, that make health care and housing so expensive in the first place.
Ocasio-Cortez, for her part, has turned Scarry’s tweet into another opportunity to tout her outsider status. “The reason journos from @FoxNews to @dcexaminer can’t help but obsess about my clothes, rent, or mischaracterize respectful convos as “fights” is bc as I’ve said, women like me aren’t supposed to run for office — or win,” she tweeted.
Now that she’s in Congress, she has an opportunity to redefine what a lawmaker looks like — even if she sticks to the dress code.
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