Hollywood legend Meryl Streep is making headlines again for not holding back during her recent media chat, and the conversation includes Melania Trump. That’s right!
Streep didn’t shy away from politics when Melania Trump came up. She reminded everyone of the infamous coat the then-first lady wore in June 2018, which read: “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” while visiting migrant children in detention.
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“I think the most… powerful message that our current first lady sent was in that coat,” Streep said. “All dress is about expressing yourself, but we’re also subject to larger historical and political sweeps of expectation.”
Trump had previously explained her fashion choice to ABC, insisting the jacket was more about sending a message to critics than to the children. Streep, however, used it as a springboard to talk about something bigger: the unspoken rules women face in fashion.
Fashion, power, bare arms
The conversation took a turn toward women in leadership and what they wear. “I’m stunned at how women in power have to have bare arms on television while men are covered in shirts and ties or a suit,” Streep said. “There’s an apology built into women. They have to show their smallness. It’s compensatory: The advancements of women in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of this one have been destabilising. It’s as if women have to say, ‘I’m little. I can’t walk in these shoes. I can’t run. I’m bare, not threatening.’”