When is it okay to talk about a woman’s appearance? There are magazines (I think) and websites and Instagram accounts dedicated to it. When you’re in the public eye, it’s going to happen. In politics, I prefer to think of it less about “appearance” and more about “image;” appearance is just working with what you have but an image is curated.
Those aiming for, or in, higher offices all do it. Stephen Harper tried out “Steve” early in his political career. There’s a story about the work that went into the choice of the blue sweater for an ad after he was Prime Minister. Pierre Poilievre traded in his collared shirt for tight tees and lost the glasses (because no one who wears glasses has ever been elected Prime Minister). Related to appearance, maybe, but the purpose is building an image.
Considering I spent the weekend watching Preston Manning’s umpteenth attempt at a comeback tour, I was initially going to pass on watching a separatist vlog. However, it was shared by someone who wouldn’t normally share that type of content and I was up extra early, so, I had time.
I got a few laughs out of it because he began with “normally I wouldn’t talk about a woman’s appearance” and then went all in. “You know where I’m going with this,” he offered, and in all honesty, I didn’t have the slightest clue.
He was talking about Danielle Smith’s “appearance” but he went so much further than that. This vlog, by a person who may actually have some clout in the separatist circles, was not intending to be mean, per se, but it was savage. Not to Danielle Smith the person but to the image of Danielle Smith, Premier.
Which, in this case, is far worse for her.
“A strong, Conservative, woman”
Over the past ten years, conservatives have started pushing back against feminism. It appeared to be in response (and effectively opposition) to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s embrace of it (or at least his curated image of doing so). At the UCP’s inaugural convention in 2018, Rona Ambrose led a panel of women in a discussion about women in politics.
Heather Forsyth called the idea of barriers to women in politics “socialist crap.” In defence of that “socialist crap,” women weren’t even considered actual people who could vie for a seat as a Member of Parliament until 1929, and there’s not a lot of work/life balance for politicians, and there’s the issue of who typically gets parachuted into a riding that has a better likelihood of winning, so, yeah, people are still curious about barriers that have existed for women.
The bit in the Alberta Legislature over the past few years has been to take every criticism from the Official Opposition as an attack on the gender of the people in charge of the Ministry they’re critiquing. If they’re women. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem to be an issue.
The first time I saw UCP House Leader Joseph Schow stand up to defend the Premier as “a strong, Conservative, woman” it struck my funny bone because I immediately thought how laughable it would be for him to accuse the Opposition of unfairly picking on “a strong, Conservative, man.”
However, it was not entirely about defending the gender of UCP ministers and the Premier (even though they only did it for the women), nor was it entirely about weaponizing feminism against critique from “the left” (which I definitely think it was)— it was also about the image they were trying to project.
For the most part, I wouldn’t even say it was wrong-headed.
From what I’ve seen and heard, voters generally accepted and agreed with that image of the Premier.
Yet, those who I’d argue were targeted with Danielle Smith’s attempt to elicit support of her big feelings at the Alberta West Assembly, were not moved in the way she intended.
They think she’s broken.
“She’s not okay.”
This particular separatist wasn’t abrasive, arrogant, nor trying to be unkind, but neither was he fazed by her depiction of a person who cares ever so much that she almost shed a tear while talking about federal environmental policy.
He showed a couple clips of her, saying she looked “gaunt,” “tired,” and “haggard.”
He then compared it with a clip of her and Prime Minister Carney at the MOU signing (where she looked like she was having a pretty good time, frankly) and saw that as evidence she must have been under duress.
Hey, I’m not saying he’s nailing this analysis— I laughed out loud more than once watching this thing— but I’m not his target audience. I have absolutely no sympathy for the fact that Danielle Smith has painted herself into a corner because it has real consequences for me and my fellow Canadians who live in Alberta.
For his audience though, which I presume is fully separatist and separatist-leaning Danielle Smith supporters, he’s creating a narrative; and it is not a good one.
With the caveat that he is “not a psychiatrist,” he said he “doesn’t know what’s going on with her,” but she looks like “she needs help.”
“I think it’s just too much for her.”
OUCH.
Personally, I guffawed my way through her performance but I figured it would be taken as evidence of how deeply she cares about oil and the (almost) overwhelming empathy she has since they’ve had to tough it out with record production and profits since the “jobless recovery” after the 2014 oil price downturn.
Apparently, I was mistaken.
In this person’s eyes (and perhaps a few of the 35,000 plus views from those tuning in as of Tuesday morning), she’s not handling herself well.
He questioned her emotional and mental state.
He offered sympathy for what he identified as weakness.
He suggested she needs to step back and take some time for herself because it’s obviously beyond her capacity to continue.
I critique a lot of things about Danielle Smith— decisions, language, inability to see past her nose, political gambles… I could go on— but her image was, I thought, pretty solid.
Then again, I’m not the audience they were trying to convince.
The audience was Danielle Smith supporters.
The audience was Alberta conservatives, and UCP supporters, and separatists, and separatist-leaning UCP supporters; and they didn’t see someone play acting her way through emotions… they saw a woman breaking under the pressure.
From his perception, and the comments on his channel, instead of being moved by it more than a few of them are, apparently, ready to sign a “get well soon” card and send her on her way.
The leopards have picked up the scent of weakness in the UCP.
Again.
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Smith crying is not the issue here - it is the blatant manipulation in what her crying is about, the anti-Ottawa grievances hat have been so much a part of the nonsensical division that the UCP an disingenuous Conservatives before her have pushed for so long. Total insincere garbage.
If her tears were genuine she was crying for herself having wrecked her political career yet again through her craven dishonesty.
But she is about the age for menopause. Maybe she can't find a family doctor, like many other Albertans. The difference is, she is to blame for that.