on perception

When it comes to politics, we rarely talk about the lifestyle. And even though it’s being used to increase the favours to certain politicians, it’s never the main focus. At least it shouldn’t be.

When we see men in politics, their fashion is rather boring and uniform. That’s why we don’t pay attention to what they wear and how they wear it. On the other hand, when it comes to female politicians we tend to focus on their hairstyles, dress, the way they smile and how often they smile.

Recently, in Slovakia, we elected a first female president, Zuzana Čaputová. Not only the first one in the history of Slovakia but first of the V4 countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary). Since the rise of populism and extreme nationalism, these countries started to blame the UE for their internal problems and started to lean towards “the great” Russia. More then ever, pro-European attitude is crucial in the countries of central Europe. Yet, we choose to discuss the looks rather than real politics.

Every time a new photo comes out, we can find charts and articles with headlines like “Top five outfits of the president” or “Best looks of Zuzana Caputová” or even articles like “Miss president, you’re a woman you should smile more often”. All these supposedly open the discussion on how our female president should look, smile and dress to fulfill all the expectations.

My response to this is radical. Rather than on the looks, we should focus on the ideas and values the president represents. As the election was a very difficult fight between one corrupted representative and her, some people see her success as a victory for the minority of the population that wants a pro-European leader. When it comes to looks, it’s no more important because she’s a remarkable person, with a strong background and integrity. And those are the first things that should come to our mind when we see her.