OFFS

Michele Bachmann's $4,700 Hair and Makeup Bill: "Considering Rep. Michele Bachmann's crusade against government spending and her demand that America live within its means, you wouldn't figure her for a conspicuous spender. But after launching her bid for the White House, Bachmann has broken with her usual frugality and shelled out some serious cash on a stylist in what could be seen as her own John-Edwards'-$400-haircut moment. According to Bachmann's latest campaign finance filings, her campaign spent nearly $4,700 on hair and makeup in the weeks after she entered the presidential race on June 13."

Seriously, Mother Jones?

Do we really have to do this EVERY FUCKING ELECTION? Or just the elections in which women are candidates?

Ahem.

$5,000 is an eminently reasonable amount of money for a woman running for national office to spend on a professional makeover. That's the same amount of money spent on just the clothes on an episode of What Not to Wear.

Do I think it's bullshit that Michele Bachmann, or any female candidate, should have to spend five grand in order to be considered presentable by the unfathomably rigid standards of our youth-, fashion-, and appearance-obsessed culture? Yes. Is that a commentary on Michele Bachmann? No.

That's a commentary on what a profoundly misogynist and body-policing garbage culture it is in which we live.

Holding an individual woman responsible for her conformance to standards created by a systemic oppression is bullshit. And that is not how feminism works.

STOP MAKING ME DEFEND MICHELE BACHMANN.