Electing a Woman President Means Caring Less About Our Hair

Like many women, I was disappointed, if not a little crushed really, when Hillary Clinton failed to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Many post mortem analyses persist as to why she was unable to secure the nomination, with what is arguably one of the most prepared presidential resumes in history, of any candidate, let alone a woman, and worse yet, to have fallen to a relatively untried political neophyte to boot. What could possibly have gone wrong? I think there is a small clue buried in a New York Times technology article published recently. While there were, and still are, many devoted and tireless women campaigners for Clinton, perhaps many women could not be bothered to get interested and active in the race for the future of the country because it didn't speak to their concerns about their hair.

According to the article, while the influence and popularity of women's websites and written content on the Internet has grown more strongly than just about any other measured sector, nearly doubling since 2006, what has driven that interest, and attracted advertiser dollars are the "tried-and-true" female topics:

To the disappointment of some women who want sites that focus on serious issues like politics, advertisers are not interested in every kind of content. They gravitate to the tried-and-true topics of women's magazines: fashion, beauty, celebrities and love life.

So do the readers. "Time and time again, women are happy to see their relationship with their food, their clothes and their relationships externally manifested in entertainment and how-to content," said Lauren Zalaznick, president of NBC Universal's women and lifestyle entertainment networks, including iVillage.

Many charges of sexism were leveled at the media for their coverage of Senator Clinton's bid for the oval office, but can we really place all the blame on them for asking what their market research tells them that women really want to know? We seem to demand that they cover what she wore, what diet she was on, how she could possibly have survived that philandering husband, and yes, how did she find a campaign resilient hairstyle; but, her policies for economic recovery, global diplomacy and improving the status of women in our country, eh, not so much. Tell us more about the hair. Perhaps it can come as no surprise then that we devote precious scientific resources, and attention at "the biggest gatherings of scientists on the planet, the American Chemical Society's national meeting in Philadelphia" to eradicating "bad hair days."

I know that there are millions of women, well coifed I might add, who are deeply concerned about current events, news and politics, and I hear from many of them that visit my little corner of cyberspace (http://www.relevantmom.blogspot.com) to discuss family and parenting news beyond just reclaiming your post baby body and, of course, carving out time to fix your hair. But until women demonstrate to America's pocket books that we care about more than our hair, perhaps a woman president is still out of reach as well.