Vogue Is Quite Relieved That Senator Is Skinny Now

Vogue seconds Harry Reid on Kirsten Gillibrand’s hotness. Especially now that she’s lost weight and can keep her younger husband interested, even if political appropriateness means that slim figure is lost to fashion. No, seriously, this is in the article.

It’s not that there isn’t plenty of relatively substantive material in Jonathan Van Meter’s profile of Gillibrand, whom he compares to Hillary Clinton for her ability to overcome the haters with her deep well of knowledge and team playing. Even if Meter does force us to read the phrase “her eyes flicker with joy” (there, I just did it to you), Gillibrand has some interesting things to say about her commitment to gay rights, and why she can withstand the personalized attacks in politics that many women would prefer to avoid.

But wait, how did she lose that baby weight? Van Meter would not be doing his job if he didn’t wrest it out of Gillibrand, whether she likes it or not.

I first ask her about it back in August over breakfast in Hudson. How much did you lose?

“Should I tell you? Really?”

I really want to know.

“Can I tell you off the record?” she says.

“The readers of Vogue will want to know this,” I say.

The answer, if the readers of Jezebel will want to know this without clicking through, is that Gillibrand lost over 40 pounds, because after she finished nursing, she says, she wanted to be “healthy and fit and play sports again.”

Vogue is less interested in those motivations and more in the missed opportunity that Gillibrand presents:

As modern and young as Gillibrand is, this is one part of her job that remains fuddy-duddy; it seems unlikely that she will blaze a daring fashion path on Capitol Hill. Which is too bad because these days, she could pull it off, having lost a lot of weight since she became senator.

Yes, Vogue is a fashion magazine. And yes, it is “too bad” that they blithely believe that fashion is only for those women willing and able to drop 40-plus pounds.

Here is one friend and colleague discussing the weight loss with Van Meter and giving him a perfectly germane transition (emphasis added),

“I think it’s a tremendous demonstration of discipline and the fact that she knows she has to be in the best health, so that she can be the best mom and the best senator.”

And no doubt remain attractive to her husband of nine years, who is two years younger than she is.

Emphasis ours. Because really, how will you keep that vastly younger man from straying without erasing all traces of the children you had together from your body? “No doubt” Vogue reminds us what really matters for women in public life.