Palin! Hillary! Stilettos! Pantsuits! Why do women in politics always read like the cover of Cosmo? Or in Palin’s case of teen pregnancies and underage drinking, The National Enquirer? I am sick of people talking about female politicians in reference to their clothes, hair and makeup. It might seem cute to use stupid phrases like “babe” or “chick” to spice up a dry piece of journalism, but it’s just not worth the price of objectifying women. People never say, “the black-office-shoe-wearing Joe Biden,” and yet I constantly see “stiletto” and “go-go boot” in reference to Palin. I might not have noticed the subtly objectifying practices of the press if I hadn’t just witnessed another presidential election — one in which a woman actually made it all the way to the presidency — while I was abroad in Argentina.

We free people of the U.S. like to think of our country as a beacon of equality, liberty, and justice. Yet, after spending a year in Argentina I can’t help but wonder how much we really have to be proud of. Argentina, along with numerous other nations, has beaten us to the punch in electing a woman president. I was there when Cristina Kirchner took office after an election that included two women as candidates. In many ways, gender was less of an issue than you might think in a machista society. Her critics called her a puppet of her husband, but they did not relentlessly refer to her appearance as we do here with Palin and Clinton.

This is not to say that Cristina’s presidency is an enlightened step forward. She followed her husband to office apparently to continue his rule, taking his place after he’d served the term limit. So far, she’s been a terrible leader. Her lack of mediation and communication skills was especially apparent in the case of a tax dispute with the nation’s farmers. Her tactlessness resulted in major road blocks, frequent street protests, and unexplained crop fires that filled the capital with smoke for a week. The smoke smell quickly went from rustic to suffocating, and Kirchner did basically nothing to stop it.

Still, with all her faults, I found myself more aware that she was a woman than most Argentines I talked to. During the elections I criticized Cristina in the same way the U.S. press would. Watching the evening news, I would remark to my host mother, Lucia, about Cristina’s over-botoxed face and coifed hair. I wondered why the other female presidential candidate seemed not to take her appearance seriously — her hair was limp, her posture hunched, and her make-up shabby. When I tried to explain why I thought it was important that she present herself more professionally, Lucia didn’t understand. Either it was my broken Spanish or Lucia was looking at the election as more than a gender war. Lucia voted for the other woman mostly because she hated the Kirchners’ politics. Gender was not a main issue, as it seems to have become in the U.S. election.

Fashion is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to disturbing trends of women in politics. Although women have finally entered the scene as candidates themselves instead of as candidates’ wives, they rarely exist outside the shadow of a man. No matter how much she proves her own merits, Hillary will always be seen as the First Lady whose husband is a womanizing ass. Not only is she seen in relation to her husband, but she is criticized for marrying him for political reasons — an accusation that is never reversed. As for Palin, it’s pretty clear that McCain chose her to get some easy votes: those of the far right, and of women who want a woman in the Oval Office other than Monica Lewinsky. Neither Palin nor Clinton is treated as a politician in her own right, outside of fashion trends and male-centered politics.

As the U.S. press treats her, a woman in politics is a politician, but she is “also a woman,” to use a phrase of Simone de Beauvoir’s. She’s expected to present herself in a way that balances competent leadership with her womanly roles as wife, mother, and fashionista. Until recently, even I unknowingly thought this way. The gender-related component is inessential in the case of male politicians who, beyond some added benefits of appearing to be “family men,” are judged on a smaller range of qualities that doesn’t include gender identity.

Perhaps it’s hard to recognize from up close, but if election coverage is any measure of where we stand, women in the U.S. still have a long way to go. If they insist on being hung up on the woman thing, maybe journalists and newscasters should just get right down to it and say “Palin, who has a vagina ...” or perhaps “The double-breasted Clinton ...” Now that’s spice.