You know, because she’s wearing high heels and that’s totally sexist, or something.

Via Slate:

Hillary Clinton has again made the cover of Time magazine. This time, instead of appearing in typical human form, she is presented as a photo illustration Frankenstein’s monster—she is a navy pantsuit leg, a modest black pump, and a bizarre accessory: a diminutive man in a suit flailing from the point of her gargantuan heel. […]

The image of a towering heel squashing a tiny man is sexualized in certain subcultures, but it’s also used by the mainstream media to connote female power in general. As Jessica Valenti and The Cut have cataloged, stock-photo searches for “feminist” and “businesswoman” regularly turn up images that look indistinguishable from the Time cover; Valenti calls this the “Mean Feminists With Shoes and Poor Emasculated Dudes” look. The depiction doesn’t show high-powered women competing against male rivals, fair and square; it suggests that the very existence of the feminine in business and politics constitutes a threat to men. It’s both sexist and hacky.

Clinton’s presumptive bid to become the first female president does position her as a powerhouse poised to stomp through the patriarchal status quo. But when publications like Time frame that feminist pursuit with images of women in pointy heels that leave feminized male “victims” in their wake, they undermine the female politician’s power even as they attempt to acknowledge it.