Ocasio-Cortez Responds To Conservative Outlet That Tried To Shame Her For $300 Haircut
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) served up a bit of sass in response to a news article that criticized her for spending $300 on a haircut.
On Wednesday, the freshman congresswoman was targeted by conservative news outlet The Washington Times in an article titled “EXCLUSIVE: Self-declared socialist AOC splurges on high-dollar hairdo.” The piece explained that Ocasio-Cortez “spent nearly $300 on her hairdo” at the Last Tangle Salon in Washington, D.C., last month.
The article went on to say that she “shelled out $80 for a haircut and $180 for lowlights” and that a “20% tip would have added $52 to the bill.”
It’s unclear why hair maintenance would be news. The outlet also clearly does not understand how much it costs for a woman to get her hair done in America, as it quoted the president of Americans for Limited Government, Richard Manning, calling Ocasio-Cortez “the Eva Peron of American politics.”
“She preaches socialism while living the life of the privileged,” Manning said. “There is nothing wrong with spending money to make yourself look better, especially as a personality who depends upon visual mediums for her power. But it is a bad look to spend hundreds of dollars to get your hair done to make a video decrying income inequality.”
Democratic socialist publication Jacobin tweeted about the article, quipping that it’s sad to see democratic socialists like Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) “do things like buy winter coats and get haircuts.”
Sad to see democratic socialists like Bernie and @AOC do things like buy winter coats and get haircuts.
Don’t they know that real socialists avoid purchasing goods and services? https://t.co/iXSpu3rwjS— Jacobin (@jacobinmag) October 10, 2019
On Thursday morning, Ocasio-Cortez responded to Jacobin’s missive about the article with some statistics about poverty in America and how the policies of democratic socialists are not to blame.
“Our policies, like Medicare for All, advance prosperity for working people. They’re just mad we look good doing it,” she wrote, accompanied by a hair toss emoji.
40 million Americans live in poverty under today’s extreme inequality, yet the right-wing want you to blame Democratic socialism for their own moral failures.
Our policies, like Medicare for All, advance prosperity for working people.
They’re just mad we look good doing it 💁🏽♀️ https://t.co/l9gKGtyKra— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 10, 2019
Many people on Twitter were incredulous that the cost of the New York congresswoman’s haircut was “news”:
1) this would obvs never be a story about a man
2) this is not an expensive haircut/color for a public figure who is frequently on TV
3) if her hair was raggedy, that would be the lead story instead
4) 🙄🙄🙄🙄https://t.co/CyXaQ860ts— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) October 10, 2019
so...a normal haircut, then?
socialism doesn't mean "let's all squat in the dirt eating worms" it means "no one gets to be a god-king floating atop a billion-dollar raft they can never spend in a thousand lifetimes while people die without medicare or food" pic.twitter.com/7ckCTWEfzb— Anthony Oliveira (@meakoopa) October 10, 2019
So @AOC calls herself a socialist but she gets her haircut at a SALON?! Curious! pic.twitter.com/ykvqLKSRMF
— jordan (@JordanUhl) October 10, 2019
I regret to inform the Washington Times that women's haircuts are, indeed, unconscionably expensive https://t.co/vL28jE2qm7
— Quinta Jurecic (@qjurecic) October 10, 2019
Does anyone actually realize how bonkers it is to be finger wagging at AOC for not getting a $20 haircut (also fuck you, no one at Supercuts is touching my hair) while actual BILLIONAIRES paid a lower tax rate than working class people last year? THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED https://t.co/f4QryDVTSm
— Laura Hudson (@laura_hudson) October 10, 2019
The Washington Times piece also notes that the 29-year-old “could have saved roughly $100 for the same hairstyle at the government-subsidized Capitol Hill barbershop.”
“Her high-dollar hairdo stands in stark contrast to that of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former senator from Alabama who is a regular customer at Senate Hair Care Services,” reads the piece, which explains that the barbershop serves “members of Congress and the public” and charges $20 for a men’s cut.
Anyone who has ever been to a hair salon can tell you that a men’s haircut almost always costs less than a woman’s, which the article does acknowledge, even though it undercuts the main point of the piece.
The absurdity of that comparison was also not lost on Twitter:
Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.
“Why won’t AOC get her hair cut like Jeff Sessions?” is certainly a take pic.twitter.com/sybZxjm26P
— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) October 10, 2019
A real line in this: "Her high-dollar hairdo stands in stark contrast to that of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former senator from Alabama who is a regular customer at Senate Hair Care Services in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building." https://t.co/6IxpnHHubS
— Eliza Relman (@eliza_relman) October 10, 2019
How dare AOC, a young woman with a full head of hair, spend more money on a haircut than Jeff Sessions, a balding old man who still laments the end of slavery? pic.twitter.com/lvx21vXSCS
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) October 10, 2019
Also on HuffPost
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.