Hillary Clinton is comfortable wearing her own naked face

I would bet if you asked any woman over the age of 30 whether she feels vulnerable without makeup, shed say she did.

We are conditioned, and quite early, to think a lot about how we look.

Our two youngest granddaughters, 8 and 9, already beg to dig into the array of cosmetics I keep within arms length on the bathroom vanity, a testament, I suppose, to my own insecurities.

I, of course, refuse permission and tell Carly and Emily they dont need any such enhancements to be lovely.

But there it is already, that consciousness about appearance despite their mothers wise and earnest efforts to minimize the whole issue of looks.

Is it just embedded in the female DNA? Who knows?

But I was both amused and quite annoyed by the flap over why Hillary Clinton has dared to appear in public recently without the camouflage of makeup. She was in Bangladesh on the minor business of worldwide diplomacy, mind you ....

Why would she do such a thing? By what right would she present herself wearing her own naked face, with just a dab of lipstick?

Brief digression:

Once, years ago, I saw Hillary Clinton at a political rally.

She was smaller in person than Id expected. And sweeter-looking.

She was also so incandescently brilliant that she spoke for nearly an hour without so much as a glimpse at notes.

She dazzled in her quiet, tailored Midwestern way, and grabbed her audience like a rock star. At her appearance that long-ago night in New Brunswick, there was an almost hysterical joy when the woman of the hour ascended the platform.

Outside the hotel were all the trappings of fame, most noticeably the police presence and the suits scattered around the lobby who looked to me like those presumably inconspicuous/always-conspicuous Secret Service guys.

All of that I remember but I cant recall a thing about her hair and makeup except that they didnt matter one iota.

Nobody had even mentioned the Hillary for Pr! esident concept back then. But in that room, the idea was definitely, absolutely blowin in the wind.

And I think I can safely say that nobody who heard Clinton that night really worried about whether her lipstick was on or off or the right color.

Nor did we care that she was, in all likelihood, in one of those non-nonsense pants suits she so often wore.

But here we are, mired in that old, tired issue about why women are subject to scrutiny and, of course, criticism if they dont meet the imposed standard of appearance.

Come on, world.

Why was this presumed appearance misdemeanor the subject of discussion on CNN? Why, oh, why the double-standard still in the 21st century?

A confession: I succumb to the vanity/appearance trap so completely that recently, when I opened the door for a visit from my own sister, I babbled something about Forgive my appearance no time to get my face on ....

Ruthie nabbed me on that one, especially the face on. The roots of that go way back, but its impossible to miss the implication that, without makeup, we are incomplete. Not ready to meet the world.

So hail to Hillary for being sure enough and brave enough not to put her face on.

Maybe its time to realize that when youre Hillary Clinton, arguably the most important statesperson on the planet, its OK to look like ... yourself.

Sally Friedman is a freelance writer. She can be reached at pinegander@aol.com.