Amal Clooney is a respected human right’s lawyer, avid social justice advocate, massively intelligent and has had an incredible career. Amal is also lesser known for being married to her celebrity silver fox husband, George Clooney. She recently spoke at the UN about ISIS where she specifically told the UN not to ignore the genocide that ISIS is committing. The speech, delivered the day after International Women’s Day, was part of a series of speeches for the event; “The Fight Against Impunity for Atrocities: Bringing Da’esh To Justice.”
“Don’t let this be another Rwanda where you regret doing too little too late” – Amal Clooney
However, instead of focusing on the importance of her speech, TIME, tweeted about the lawyer’s baby bump instead, completely trivializing her trip, and her speech. When they could have tweeted about her warning that a lack of response could lead to civilian genocide comparable to what happened in Rwanda, they chose to talk about her fashion and barely noticeable baby bump. Amal, who works with the victims of Islamic State, specifically rapes and kidnappings, obviously feels very passionately about the topic, that passion isn’t shared or recognized by TIME.
Amal Clooney shows off her baby bump at the United Nations https://t.co/0Vkr8aad1D
— TIME (@TIME) 10 mars 2017
The public outcry so far, on Twitter specifically, has been massive. Many people are justly slamming TIME for their sexist tweet, asking why they felt the need to trivialize her trip to the UN, by making tweets about her body and her clothes.
Microaggressions like this, trivialize the job choices that women make. Making patronizing tweets about a female lawyer’s clothes while she’s discussing genocide and sexual slavery really shows the amount of respect that TIME has for women lawyers. It’s not needed, or respectful in the least. Amal Clooney is using her knowledge, time, and platform to speak about an important social issue, while TIME uses their platform to talk about her maternity fashion.
TIME was not the only news source to focus exclusively on her baby bump, and fashion while ignoring the rest of her speech. Others include Hollywood Life’s headline, “Amal Clooney Puts Her Growing Baby Bump on Display In Chic Yellow Dress for U.N. Speech”, and E! News ran the headline, “Amal Clooney Shows Baby Bump in What Could be the Ultimate International Women’s Day Poster.”
There is nothing wrong with being pregnant and working, and her career shouldn’t be completely overlooked just because she’s pregnant. She’s still working, dedicating time and energy to making the world a better, safer, place. But we can’t say the same thing for TIME.
Focusing on a person’s pregnancy and ignoring anything else they happen to be doing takes away their autonomy as a person and objectifies them. Amal has to wear clothes to the UN, obviously, but as they’re not the center of her career, they shouldn’t be the center of the focus surrounding her. She’s a brilliant woman, and her words deserve to be reported on properly.
Tweets like this invalidate her entire career. Saying that you care more about the fact she’s having babies, and her yellow outfit shows that you’re putting the importance on clothes over her intellect.
Public outcry is what is needed in these situations. Let these news sources know that you don’t appreciate a world-renowned human rights lawyer being admired only for what she happened to wear while speaking at the UN. Listen to what women are saying, instead of looking at what they’re wearing, and we’ll benefit a lot more.
