On Monday night, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters took to the House floor to give a speech about her distaste for President Donald Trump, Cosmopolitan reports.
“We’re saying to those who say they’re patriotic but they’ve turned a blind eye to the destruction that he’s about to cause this country, ‘You’re not nearly as patriotic as we are,'” Waters said in the speech, according to The Hill. Since Water is a politician, and not, say, a runway model or something, the only thing that should matter about this speech are her words. But that’s not how Fox News host Bill O’Reilly saw it.
On the show Fox and Friends the next morning, Bill O’Reilly’s only comment about Waters’ speech was, “I didn’t hear a word she said. I was looking at the James Brown wig.”
This remark was in response to a question about his opinion on Water’s rhetoric, and there was no reason for him to make a comment about the congresswoman’s looks. While O’Reilly’s male co-hosts laughed at the joke, his only female in the group, Ainsley Earhardt, was quick to jump to Water’s defense saying, “I have to defend her on that. She a—you can’t go after a woman’s looks.”
Cosmo notes that Earhardt’s statement, on its own, would have been effective in bringing attention to the tendency of the media, and society in general, to judge women in politics by their looks rather than what they have to say. However, she then attempted to refute O’Reilly by saying, “I think she’s very attractive” and “Her hair is pretty,” The Hill points out. Although she was trying to defend Waters, she too made the topic of conversation about Water’s looks rather than the powerful speech she gave. I think we can all agree that it’s time to start questioning our impulse to always comment on women’s fashion and beauty choices, and start focusing on what’s coming out of their mouths.