Make Her Look Like a Rhodes Scholar

If Twitter is the collective consciousness of the era, there is much to be learned from its slogans. After Christine O’Donnell’s infamous performance in the Delaware senatorial debates last week, people all over the world tweeted scornfully, “She makes Sarah Palin look like a Rhodes Scholar.” But even before Ms. O’Donnell denied the separation of church and state, the line has been passed around with varying embellishments and expletives for weeks. Others have suggested that Ms. O’Donnell makes Michelle Bachman, Paris Hilton and Edith Bunker look positively Oxonian.

And O’Donnell is not alone in her powers of flattering comparison: Kat Von D, the woman who broke up Jesse James and Sandra Bullock, apparently makes Jennifer Aniston look like one.  Playboy bunny Kendra Wilkinson does the same for Pamela Anderson. Fox News Anchor Gretchen Carlson makes Jessica Simpson look like a Rhodes Scholar, and so does Brooke Hogan. In 2009, the protagonist of Confessions of a Shopaholic made Elle Woods, heroine of Legally Blonde, look like one, too.

While this last comment is confusing, as Ms. Woods attended Harvard Law School in her film debut and eyed a presidential run by the end of the sequel, the authors of these lines clearly intend to be making a nasty joke; Mr. Durst, who describes himself as “C-SPAN’S favorite comic” amongst more serious comedic credentials, has even seen fit to submit his iteration of the O’Donnell /Palin joke to a humor blog called “Laugh Lines” that boasts that its material is “always funny.”

But why is it “always funny” to suggest that a woman like Sarah Palin could be a Rhodes Scholar? While I violently disagree with her politics and her persona and much of the rest of her existence, it is undeniable that Palin exhibits the strong leadership qualities that Cecil Rhodes himself would have been proud of, not to mention their shared belief in white supremacy, so it wouldn’t have been funny back when he was thinking about candidates. The other women so lampooned generally share the quality of being famous for their looks, but would a good looking man get the same critique? I have yet to see that happen in the omniscient twittersphere.

The “dumb blonde” stereotype has been harming beautiful women since time immemorial (see Maureen Dowd’s cogent take on the politics of playing dumb, starring Palin herself), but ironic use of the Rhodes Scholarship in particular raises a difficult question for women who are Rhodes Scholars. If it is laughable that a beautiful woman could be a Rhodes Scholar, the implication is that either Rhodes women are not beautiful (which we, having met several, will not entertain) or that Rhodes women are a joke.

And in America, where the phrase has been notably virulent, the Rhodes Scholarship is often shorthand for “very smart,” for “leader,” for “success,” that means it is “always funny” to entertain the possibility of a thinking woman.

This phenomenon is concerning for the status of the Scholarship in general. Again, turning to Twitter as the zeitgeist of these times, a prolonged search reveals that the term “Rhodes Scholar” is used more often as part of a belittling insult or a haughty claim to superiority (although never by people who actually have the honor). What can be done to reclaim the profile of the Rhodes Woman, and the Rhodes Scholar, so that it’s pop culture presence matches the noble, not-me-first values espoused by so many of its recipients?

(Cross-posted at The Rhodes Project Blog)