To the Editor:

I recently read Pete Stubben's letter, which commented on Senator Correa Hemphill's clothes. Too often, we are distracted from substance by fluffy things, like a NM Senator's collar or the length of a US Senator's pants. Not too long ago, US Senator John Fetterman faced pressure to shed his cargo shorts for long pants because some in the Senate felt that shorts did not reflect the decorum required of the U.S. Senate. Now, NM State Senator Correa Hemphill is being snarkily scrutinized for being too dressed up, when every photo I've seen of her on the job in our NM State Senate has shown her to reflect the decorum traditionally expected of our legislators. What happens to the issues of policy and law when we focus on how people look instead of what policies they create and the values they support?

It was a tough decision for me to address Mr. Stubben's reference to what Senator Correa Hemphill was wearing in that photo, but I decided to venture there. Historically women have been judged and judged harshly for what they wear or how they otherwise look. In Mr. Stubben's letter, he refers to Senator Correa Hemphill as wearing a "white mink coat." I lived in the Alaskan Interior for a number of years among people who earned much of their income as trappers. On occasion I helped a few with the job of skinning minks and pine martens. Correa Hemphill is not wearing a fur coat at all, and as to the source of the fluff around the collar, it is most definitely not mink…white or otherwise.

Lacking a sense of women's fashion and given a possible distraction by the fluffy alpaca wool collar, did Mr. Stubben mistakenly see a fur coat instead of a cloth coat with a fluffy collar? Or is he once again pushing buttons and blowing dog whistles?

Sharon Bookwalter.
Silver City, NM