Chances are the media-savvy suffragists who wore white so their photographs would pop in print did not anticipate their successors would rely on the same tactics to shine on television a century or so later. Probably they didn’t think citizens would need to make such grand gestures anymore, that the once-radical cause of “women are also people” would simply be accepted as a given and would no longer require a uniform.

And yet, here we are: The House Democratic Women’s Working Group is calling for female legislators to wear white to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday evening. “Wearing suffragette white is a respectful message of solidarity with women across the country, and a declaration that we will not go back on our hard-earned rights,” Rep. Lois Frankel of Florida, the group’s chair, told CNN.

Considering the near-parodic level of disarray that has come to define the Trump White House — where staffers are whisked in and out of the West Wing faster than Bachelor contestants are sent, via limousines, back to obscurity — the fact that these female legislators are able to coordinate literally anything, even their attire, makes them look more put-together than the President of the United States. Symbolism aside, it’s a bit of a flex, no? The effort is proof that these female legislators have it together, in the full sense of that word.

In the years since Hillary Clinton wore a white pantsuit to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the suffragist suit has experienced a cultural resurrection, speedily becoming the little black dress of women in politics. It’s a go-to aesthetic that gestures at history without looking dated, a uniform that still leaves space for your identity to shine through. You’re part of something bigger; you are still your individual self. It is both obviously and undeniably political, as well as being such a safe and accessible raiment that women as politically divergent as first lady Melania Trump and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have worn it for events when they knew the spotlight would find them: the former to last year’s State of the Union address, the latter to her swearing-in ceremony.

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