Jewellery doesn't figure in Clark or Clinton's power bids, unless it's so subtle you barely see it. Conspicuous bling suggests you're trying, and men - if it's their attention you want - don't look on older women as worth the effort.
Americans are all about the teeth. The Obamas' are perfect, and Clinton's have been worked on: we wear them down as we age, otherwise, and they turn nasty shades of off-white. That couldn't be tolerated in a female president.
She may need to be a little frumpy, but cosmetic dentistry is basic American maintenance. Clark's teeth are best left unmentioned. The helpful hints cut only one way.
Blurry gender messages put out by older women seeking power are one thing; they're about not being titillating, and accepting what inevitably goes with the territory.
Men are different. They don't admit they're getting old despite the general gender blurriness of age, which explains the fashion for chin stubble among men in public life who now want to declare that they're hairy in one place, even if they no longer are in others. Simon Cowell of Britain's Got Talent is a prime example.
But who wants to kiss nailbrushes? And what does this mean when men are waxing their body hair everywhere else?
If it's a big deal when women don't shave their legs; that hair is soft, at least; why isn't it when men can't be arsed shaving their chins?
As one New Zealander - Clark - proves herself useful in the corridors of power, another one-time Kiwi, Saatchi & Saatchi's Kevin Roberts, proves dim-witted. The executive chairman of Saatchi's earns more than $2 million a year, which he seemed to feel qualified him this week to speak on gender diversity in the company and claim the debate was over. Over? More likely it has yet to hit full stride: there's fashion in thought just as much as in dress and grooming.
A list of the world's highest-paid 17 people in advertising, compiled last year, included Roberts.
That was no surprise: they were mostly white men, with just one woman. His explanation for the lack of gender balance would be because, as he puts it, women's "is not a vertical ambition". How we love an ageing white man saying what we think. It was the voice of the increasingly distant past, a backward step when fashion and advertising have to be au courant.
Roberts has been placed on embarrassment leave by Saatchi's parent company, which has apologised for his odd outburst. Hopefully he'll now find the time to contemplate the career trajectories of May, Clark and Clinton, and challenge himself to fit them into his interesting theory.
- Rosemary McLeod is a journalist and author.
