Female reporters on Capitol Hill are not allowed to enter the Speaker’s Lobby in dresses without sleeves. Male reporters are not allowed to enter the Speaker’s Lobby without ties or jackets.
The existence of this patently equitable dress code sent Twitter into an uproar on Thursday night after CBS News published a story that largely downplayed the restrictions on men, prompting several additional outlets to follow suit. The thrust of the coverage lead readers to come away with the impression that the sexist patriarchs of Capitol Hill are implementing antiquated rules designed to exert control over the bodies of professional women.
That the dress code applies to both sexes, perhaps the most critical detail, is not new, and that it was also implemented under the tenure of staunch feminist Nancy Pelosi, mattered little to those who latched onto the narrative as yet another apparent example of resurgent and insurmountable misogyny in modern America. But it has been enforced for years to both men and women passing through the lobby off the House floor.
Several in the media went so far as to claim the rule reflected draconian regulations imposed on women in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a novel and television series where women are forced to bear children via rape and can’t read, vote, or own property. Given that men are restricted right alongside their female counterparts in the lobby, those comparisons are at least a little stupid. Or more than a little.
Even if female reporters passing through the Speaker’s Lobby were subject to harsher wardrobe rules than men, which they are not, the reaction would have been grossly out of proportion.
Requesting reporters enter an important and historic room in the Capitol building in proper attire is completely reasonable, so long as it applies equally to both sexes. And it does. Many people in the media interact so regularly with powerful people in historic spaces that it’s easy to forget their significance. Asking for heightened formality in the space outside the House chamber, just one room accessed by relatively few people, is not beyond reason.
But reason is in short supply on Twitter, where outrage is the primary currency for Beltway journalists and breathless partisans eager to be heard.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
