When I was in preschool, the girls in my class created a nail polish club. Admission relied on one crucial characteristic: you had to be wearing nail polish. This made the club pretty exclusive, since not many three year olds are nail salon frequenters, but somehow I have a feeling that was the purpose of the club. That, and it was a chance to show off your pink nail polish, if you were one of the girls allowed to wear it. Over the years, the nail polish club dissolved, but many more sprang up in its place: clubs, groups, and cliques created for the sole purpose of excluding girls based on their style choices.

It is no secret that our society emphasizes appearance. Furthermore, a double standard exists in the ways we scrutinize women’s appearance as opposed to men’s. Imagine if as many articles were written about Barack Obama’s tie choice as there are about Michelle Obama’s inaugural shoes, stockings, hat, or shorts on Air Force One. For years, the first lady of the United States has served as a style icon; someone to aspire to, someone to make fun of, or someone simply to talk about…in excruciating detail. But maybe this can be chalked up to the fact that the anyone accompanying the president would be scrutinized. But ifthe appearances spouses of powerful men are this important, then the same should be true of the spouses of powerful women. I don’t think I have to tell you this is not the case.

In the 2008 presidential election, the powerful women themselves were scrutinized. Remember Hillary Clinton’s “cleavage incident?” (If it can even be called cleavage, or an incident!) The senator wore a modest V-neck shirt, showing a fraction of a shadow on her chest, and the media was incapable of reporting anything else for the three days. It didn’t stop there. A Google search of Hillary Clinton will reveal hundreds of horrendous pictures, along with thousands of critiques of her “fat ankles,” “wrinkled face,” etc. Now, I doubt Hillary Clinton is the only person ever to take a poor photograph, so why is the internet plastered with bad pictures of her and not Barack Obama or John McCain? The answer is simple: our perceptions of women in power rely heavily on their appearances. According to Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s Legislative Director, people often call her office saying, “I didn’t really like Congresswoman Maloney’s hair today.” That type of scrutiny doesn’t leave much room for anything else. With people thinking this way, it’s no coincidence there aren’t more women in power.

Unlike in preschool, it’s not just the girls excluding the girls. Clinton talked about “The Old Boys Club” during her campaign, and many male bloggers, pundits, and even other politicians remark on powerful women’s appearances. Remember when Biden said that what he liked about  Kucinich was his wife? I’m waiting for the day when a female politician can tell Edwards all she likes about him is his eyes. I’m waiting for the day when someone finally points out: yeah, Hillary’s hair isn’t amazing, but at least she has some! I’m waiting for the day when it doesn’t matter if you have fat ankles, because they don’t have much to do with foreign policy decisions, anyway.

The hardest part is realizing that I inevitably subscribe to this double-standard, too. When I see a female politician standing next to a male politician, I look more closely at her attire than his. This isn’t all my fault; after all, male politicians wear the same black and white uniform, whereas female politicians switch it up a bit. Still, I can’t help but feel a tad hypocritical as I critique society’s fixation on a woman’s exterior, yet still enjoy leafing through Vogue every once in a while.

This fixation on appearance translates to body image, as well. In Art History one day, when examining Artemisia Gentileschi’s work, Susannah and the Elders, which portrays a woman bathing, a boy in my class raised his hand with the earnest comment, “Why is she so fat?” It is moments like that when it hits me how silly this fixation is. In her day, Susannah was considered quite the hottie, I’m sure—two men peep in on her as she bathes after all—but then again, one only has to look at the transition from Marilyn Monroe to Twiggy to Giselle to see how fragile our perceptions of the body are, changing with the frequency of ipods: there’s always something new we have to acquire.

Is it coincidence that the wardrobes of female political candidates is so often what is discussed about them, and that teenage girls suffer far more than boys from body image issues and eating disorders? Probably not, but this brings me to the question: What am I—what are we—going to do about it?

Sometimes, trying not to critique other women’s appearances more than their male colleagues’, but still subscribing to some “stupid” fashion trends around me, I feel like I am tip-toeing along an imaginary tightrope, from which I might slip at any moment. How can I pretend, when my peers pore over Seventeen, that I am not conditioned, too, to critique the cheekbones of the cover model? As a fifteen-year-old girl, I am used to appearance being something my peers focus on.  No matter how much I try to stay out of that mindset, it is all around me right now: in the glances I get as I walk into school in a new outfit, in the advertising which dictates how I should look, and in the way I judge a person based on their dress. I can try to think differently, but it will always be difficult to walk that delicate line. For now, my objective is wearing the nail polish, but refraining from joining the club.