My Apologies, Madame Secretary

 

(This is NOT a political post - it is a style post.)

I want to publicly apologize to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.  For several months now, whenever I see a photo of her, I think to myself, "What the heck is she thinking with her hair?? It looks terrible." Earlier today, I was reading the blog NYSD and at the bottom of Liz Smith's column was a photo of Hillary from 2006.   

Photo from NYSD blog

My first thought was, "She looks so pretty and fresh there.  I wonder why she doesn't look like that anymore?".  And then it immediately dawned on me.  How stupid am I?  I think she was only a senator from New York in 2006 who had tons more time and energy to spend on making herself look beautiful.  If I was in her current position of Secretary of State, not that I ever could or would be, I would probably look a million times worse!

People, men and women, tend to age dramatically in these extremely high stress jobs.  We see how each US President ages in office.  I can only imagine that the Secretary of State job is almost as stressful, plus they have to constantly fly around the world.  Jet lag doesn't look good on anyone.

AP photo by Evan Vucci

 

 

AP photo by Karel Navarro

 

Judging how our public figures look, whether they are politicians, movie stars, or business leaders, is just human nature.  I think especially if you have an aesthetic eye, as I do, sometimes (or always!) that's what first comes into you mind when you see a photo, without thinking of the context of the photo.  I do think we tend to be much harder on women than men.  I mean for heaven's sake, President Obama doesn't even have to comb his hair, let alone worry about styling it!

 

I must say, in the two current photos of Hillary above, I think her wardrobe choices are impeccable.  And now that I think about it, her current hair style is probably as carefree as she can make it for her extremely busy life and easy to pull back in a ponytail when she needs to, as she is flying all over creation trying to help solve the actual, real problems of the world.

 

So, I want to end this by saying to Madame Secretary, "I am sorry for judging your hair.  I am so proud of you and all you are doing and have done.  You are a remarkable role model.  And you know what, I actually do love a headband every now and then!