Why, Tim Gunn, Why?

[Trigger warning for transmisogyny, gender policing, body policing.]

Fucking hell:

Apparently, it never gets old to mock Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "cankles" and pantsuits, at least if you're Tim Gunn and George Lopez, who took the sexist trash-talking to the next level on Lopez's show last night.

...After paying lip service to Clinton's actual accomplishments, Gunn demanded, "Why must she dress that way? I think she's confused about her gender!" He added, "No, I'm really serious, she wears pantsuits that are unflattering." Then it went on to "cankles."

Gunn finished, "I have great respect for her intellect and her tenacity and for what she does for our country in her governmental role. I just wish she could send a stronger message about American fashion."

1. That is not in the job description of the Secretary of State. 2. This is the exact reason why it's bullshit when ostensibly progressive publications lay into female candidates for spending money on their appearance: The expectations on women in the public sphere are outrageous.

(Yes, expecting Hillary Clinton to give a fuck about "sending a message about American fashion" while meeting with foreign dignitaries is outrageous, or the word has lost all meaning.)

I could spend the rest of the day debunking the heaping shitloads of garbage embedded within Gunn's and Lopez's exchange (of which there is video at the link, if you're inclined to protract the agony), but I wouldn't say anything I haven't said a thousand times before. Fuck it.

I will instead just note that when a woman stands up and says, "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all," and then says, fifteen years later, "Human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights," thus allying herself with a ginormous swath of the fashion industry in a fight for recognition of our basic personhood, anyone who gives a flying flunderton if she wears a goddamn potato sack for the rest of her days, no less sneers at her cankles in a fit of misogynistic and objectifying and dehumanizing pique, is an asshole of epic proportions.

And, seriously, if you look at this AP photo of Clinton with other foreign ministers and officials at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Bali last Saturday—


—and its most important aspect to you is how her suit fits, you have lost the plot.