Concentrating on the Essential

On Venezuela's appallingly sexist twitter eyes.

How the Venezuela twittersphere sees this picture

Shortly after Mr Trump tweeted that infamous picture, the twittersphere criolla knew right away what it needed to fixate on: it wasn’t Trump’s awkward thumbs up, or Rubio’s fake smile or even Pence’s strange body language. Of course not. The wrongest of the wrong was Lilian’s blouse. I mean, does Lilian even know the rule? You think about your blouse before you go to the White House, pana.

Jokes about her looks were quick and memes flooded our feeds.

Don’t get me wrong, there are probably a million reasons why you want to criticise Lilian’s visit to the White House, but fixating on her outfit does not make you any better. I repeat, going down the sexist route does not make you better. I bet if it had been Timoteo Zambrano the one visiting Trump, no one would be discussing his looks, his weight or suit. We would be just discussing his terrible ideas and how wrong he is all the time, amirite?

This sort of sexist online storm is not new. Back in 2005 when Maria Corina shook hands with George Bush (no comments here) online media was fixated with her skirt, which apparently was deemed too short (as if she was 12 and partying at a guerra de minitecas) and her sandals were too ‘inappropriate’ to wear near Mr Danger.

No one paid attention to the fact that she held a presser at the White House lawn, for example. No way, people were just too busy looking at her toes and wondering if she had a proper pedi.

I’m no expert here, but I think if you’re invited to the White House it’s safe to assume you were smart enough to pull some strings, you built an influential network and you have some important shit to say. Unless you have a vagina, then all we’ll talk about is how you look.