Articles About Hillary Clinton's Hair Are Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Hillary Clinton has worn many hats during her political career — First Lady, Presidential candidate, and Secretary of State, and half of one of the most brilliant political couples of the last century, to name a few. But today, we’re going to toss aside all that accomplishment and talk about her fucking hair again, because why the fuck not?

We’ve come a long way, baby(s), since old timey Mad Men style sexism was de rigueur in daily interactions with people who are not Richard Cohen. But that doesn’t mean that sometimes, even the world’s most powerful women aren’t spoken to and about like they’re child pageant contestants or terrified South African blonde women marrying into obscure European royal families. Case in point: Isabelle Goetz, a hair stylist who has managed the coifs of everyone from Hillary Clinton to John Kerry has written a book about her experiences. And US News took a break from compiling college rankings to put together a piece about the book’s release that focuses almost exclusively on Clinton’s hair rather than her stylist’s career.

Appropriately entitled Hillary Clinton’s Longtime Hair Stylist Shares Secrets Behind the Diplomat’s Ever-Changing Hair (it’s ever changing! Like a follicle kaleidoscope, or the Grand Canyon or a double rainbow!), the piece embarks on a journey through several sentences that Hillary Clinton entered public service to ensure would never be written.

I don’t want to be mean, and also I’m very, very tired, so let’s just parse this out chunk by chunk, and using gifs. Starting at the beginning.

The bangs. The headbands. The hair flip. The paillettes.

The fire. The vomit. The fire. The vomit. I bet Thom Yorke is upset that he didn’t think to include this in the lyrics to Paranoid Android.

The public’s obsession over Hillary Clinton’s hair choices stretches back to her days as first lady. And the now-Secretary of State’s tresses were back in the spotlight when she wore a scrunchie to visit Burmese opposition politician Aung-San Suu Kyi earlier this year.

Through visits to the White House and travels with the first lady, Goetz reined in the media criticism of Clinton’s hairstyles. The stylist slowly layered Clinton’s trademark bob, and then cut her hair much shorter. “But she never directed me about what to do,” Goetz tells Whispers. Clinton kept the mostly well-received short cut for years.

When do we get to hear from the guy who polishes Bill Clinton’s balls? How about President Obama’s barber, the one who makes sure his fade stays tight? When do we get to learn about what John Boehner wears when he goes in that spray tanning booth? I bet it’s a stained-up America Speedo.

But back to important matters of national security.

More recently, the Secretary of State has grown her hair longer, even putting it up in hasty ponytails-something Goetz doesn’t take credit for. Goetz doesn’t take credit for the infamous scrunchie either, saying she had given Clinton an unobtrustive metal clip to wear for the meeting.

“But I only see her now when she is in town, which is not often,” she tells Whispers. “With her crazy schedule, [the ponytail] is what she wants.”

PONYTAILS, YOU SAY?!

Weirdly, US News piece acknowledged just how little Hillary Clinton would like the fact that we’re talking about her fucking hair again with a little rundown of the times that Hillary Clinton has personally said that it’s really stupid to talk about female politicians’ hair when they’re doing, you know, actual important stuff.

The Secretary of State has also become more dismissive over time of the attention paid to her hair (and clothes). In May, she told CNN she wasn’t going to worry about media criticism of her looks any more at this age. When a moderator of a panel in Kyrgyzstan asked her in 2010 which clothing designers she preferred, Clinton shot back: “Would you ever ask a man that question?” The moderator admitted: “Probably not.”

Goetz says she doesn’t know yet what Clinton’s hair will look like on Inauguration Day. But her salon in Georgetown, “Isabelle’s OKYO Salon,” held an event on Saturday to show off the styles it found appropriate for the ceremony. The event, put on by the D.C.-based group Art Soiree, featured styles that were entirely French-inspired: channeling Marie Antoinette, Coco Chanel and Bridget Bardot.

Goetz won’t say whether Clinton’s inauguration hair will similarly be inspired by her home country.