I didn’t write about the curtsy at the time, and by now perhaps you can guess why. There was no way to describe the spectacle — and it did become a spectacle; GIFs of this curtsy were everywhere — without running the risk of sounding sexist. The senator’s fashion and flouncy movements during that vote were specifically feminine, but making that observation could be seen as attacking Sinema for being female. She would later call the attention paid to her fashion choices as “very inappropriate,” as it suggested that “women are dressing for someone else.”
I might have argued that the problem wasn’t that she dressed as a woman but that she had behaved as a girl, but, whatever. I was about to go on maternity leave and I didn’t need the headache.
The year after that vote, Sinema changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent, and earlier this week she announced that she would not be seeking reelection. And I’m still thinking about that minimum-wage vote and about all the ways it was hard to talk about Kyrsten Sinema.
She’d won her race by positioning herself as the worthy heir to John McCain’s seat: a maverick-type who would be guided by her conscience and her constituents rather than her party. She was the first publicly bisexual person elected to the Senate. She wore pastel wigs. She wore a fringed minidress. She went to brunch wearing a ring that read “F— Off.” She presided over the Senate in a neon-pink top that read “Dangerous Creature.” Have you ever seen an episode of one of those NCIS-type shows where the in-house hacker character dresses like the intersection of rockabilly, Hot Topic and librarian? It was that.
People noticed. Women noticed, and especially if you were the kind of woman who was tired of professionalism and competence being associated with neckties and maleness, maybe you got excited by the idea that times were changing, that power could look different and Kyrsten Sinema was the proof.
But as for her policies, I dunno. What’s your definition of “Dangerous Creature”? She was one of two Democrats to vote against an exception to the filibuster, which would have advanced a major voting rights bill. She voted against the “Green New Deal.” It was mavericky, sure, in the sense that most Democrats hated her for it, but it was not mavericky in the way that her once-excited fans had expected. “Kyrsten Sinema is retiring from the Senate to spend more time with her corporate benefactors,” snarked the activist Charlotte Clymer on X. The Mary Sue, a feminist website, marked Sinema’s announcement with the headline, “Kyrsten Sinema Announces Retirement as Useless Corporate Senate Shill Who Accomplished Nothing.”
We could debate how much of that was true. She certainly sided with progressives many times; she vocally supported reproductive rights. What was definitely true is that the chasm between her outré outfits — the ones she asked us not to notice but clearly delighted in wearing — and her middle-of-the-road policies made the outfits more interesting and the policies more baffling. The style world is very accustomed to fashionistas using their clothing as a clever means of conveying worldviews. It’s less accustomed to fashionistas whose clothing seems to bear little resemblance to their worldviews. Washington is very accustomed to empty suits. It’s less accustomed to empty batwing dresses.
If Kyrsten Sinema had voted against the minimum-wage hike but had done so somberly, while wearing a muted pantsuit, it’s hard to imagine that she would have gained more attention than Jeanne Shaheen or…