NBC News published an article titled “More Republican women than ever are planning to run for office,” but the original headline picture drew controversy from young conservatives on Twitter.
The picture showed the iconic skirts of the conservative women’s group Future Female Leaders.
Many of the young ladies whose legs were featured in the picture spoke out. They were angry that a headline highlighting the GOP’s accomplishment was simultaneously sexualizing conservative women by only showing their legs.
NBC News eventually took down the tweet and reposted the story with a different photo.
More Republican women than ever are planning to run for office.
"They're tired of being quiet, and they know they have a lot to give," says Patti Russo, who's helped run the Women's Campaign School at Yale University for more than two decades. https://t.co/vCykEYfZ6S
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 27, 2019
Controversy aside, the second photo is objectively better. The issues with the first picture, however, seem fairly insignificant. The skirts depict elephants, a clear symbol of the GOP. The purpose of using this picture does not seem to be a sexualization of conservatives.
Since when is the right the side that makes a big deal out of petty missteps? If third-wave feminists were screaming “sexism,” over the use of the photo, we would be labeling this controversy liberal outrage culture. For so long, conservatives have been calling for leftists to calm down and talk rationally about cultural issues — including sexism. So why are young conservatives suddenly up in arms about a picture of a skirt?
Not to mention, crying “sexism” over this photo makes it seem as though a male author and editor posted this picture. In fact, three women wrote this article.
The NBC article highlights five Republican women running for Congress in 2020, including Emily Pelphrey of Ohio, Valerie Mukherjee of Illinois, Anne Smith of Virginia, Angela Woods of Pennsylvania, and Laura Ramirez Drain of Virginia.
The article touches on how Republican PACS are focusing more money and efforts toward recruiting conservative women to run for office. They’re finding the best success rates in history.
Joining in outrage culture over the picture distracts from the importance of the content within NBC’s article. A historic number of Republican women are running for Congress. For Future Female Leaders, it should be more important to uplift Republican congresswomen than to create a controversy over some lazy author’s photo choice.
