It is no secret that the media have always been generous when dishing out criticism among our country's First Ladies -- criticism which would be understandable if, say, the First Lady were to be found out as an avid supporter of Adolf Hitler or, I don't know, murder puppies in her free time - but a large amount of criticism from the media upon the First Ladies of our nation tends to focus on trivial details such as their facial and bodily appearances, outfits, and how they spend their free time.

This media practice is nothing new. In the 1860s, during Abraham Lincoln's presidency, his wife and America's First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln was criticized by the public for her tendency to spend her money lavishly and redecorate the White House. More recently, a comic by cartoonist Ben Garrison circulated through the public, meaning to criticize First Lady Michelle Obama. If you haven't had the chance to view it yet, here it is:

Yep. Your eyes aren't tricking you. A person actually took the time to draw this cartoon, suggesting that our current First Lady isn't "great" because she is a well-toned, athletically built, (beautiful and graceful, in my personal opinion) woman as opposed to presidential candidate Donald Trump's wife, Melania, a cookie-cutter, curves-in-all-the-right-places woman. Basically, as portrayed in this comic, the First Lady won't be "great" until she looks good. Pay no attention to her policies or what she plans to do (or, in Mrs. Obama's case, has done) for our country. It only matters what she looks like because we should leave the real work to her husband. She should sit back, smile and wave, and look pretty.

If it isn't painfully obvious now, the First Lady of the United States is so heavily scrutinized because of blatant sexism in the media. Until our society discontinues to perpetuate the misogynist, archaic opinions about women that it currently does, there will always be unprecedented, superficial opinions about the First Lady's appearance.

So, what am I saying? What's my point?

Well, my boyfriend and I were in the car yesterday, talking about politics, and we agreed that neither of us is excited for either a Trump or a Clinton presidency, and he said something that made me immediately think, "I have to write about this." So, here we are.

He said, "There is one thing I'm looking forward to if Clinton becomes President. The media will be completely at a loss for words when it comes to Bill. How will they criticize the First Man? They'll be scrambling to find ways to critique his outfit, his hair, his [lack of] makeup, but they'll come up empty-handed because he's male, and they'll have to accept the fact that they've been completely misogynistic towards the past First Ladies."

So, yes, I was immediately floored because I hadn't thought of that. If Bill Clinton becomes our country's first First Man, the media will have no idea what to say, for which I, too, am fairly excited.

My hope is that, once the media cannot find a way to irrelevantly criticize Bill, they'll get called out. They will have to recognize that they can no longer use the excuse, "She's the First Lady; she has to look like this and dress like this and act like this," because they aren't holding Mr. Clinton to the same superficial standards.

It likely won't change much, but maybe it'll open some eyes.

Here's hoping.