Olona's wet T-shirt photo sparks online mockery

Olona's photo shoot reopens the fight over female politicians' bodies

Macarena Olona knew exactly what was going to happen. Or maybe she didn't; it doesn't matter, because the outcome has been the same: the image of the state attorney (abogada del Estado, a senior Spanish civil service legal post) in a natural setting, with a wet T-shirt clinging to her body, has unleashed a string of comments in which political analysis is conspicuously absent.

The photo, posted on her social media, has run into two fronts. The first dismisses her with a long-distance clinical diagnosis: narcissism in its exhibitionist variant, hang-ups about age, pure aesthetic judgement. The second, no more delicate, calls her out as a mother: "who looks after her young son while she's off doing this?" In between, jokes ranging from mockery to explicit desire.

What stands out is the shared blind spot. Nobody discusses what a state attorney is doing posting a photo like this; everyone discusses the body that appears in it. It is the same reflex that turns a woman who has passed a competitive civil service exam — the one fact that is actually on the table — into a body before a professional record.

The episode is no isolated case. A female politician who dares to show some skin is subjected to scrutiny her male colleagues never endure. Comparisons with other female public figures come easily, and none of them comes out well.

If the aim was to make noise, she has succeeded. If the aim was something else, that too. Because in this digital ecosystem, a photo is worth more than a thousand election manifestos, but the price is always paid by the same person: the image of a public woman reduced to her attributes. The most reasonable forecast is that this will not stop: the next photo shoot, whether she wants it or not, will once again become a headline that says nothing about politics.