“Stop whining!” blasted the email from my friend, a senior finance lawyer. “Women need to whip themselves into shape, get Botox, buy nice clothes and glam it up. Time to get in touch with our inner Ivanka and Melania.” She goes on: “They are the new role models!” She was joking. Sort of.

So far, this much is clear: President-elect Trump is making some women in male-dominated professions such as law anxious—and not just about his policies. He has tapped into our primal insecurities about our looks, and how our physical flaws can diminish our professional success.

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Not that Trump can help that he’s surrounded by beautiful women. It’s not his fault that attractive people get breaks in life and women are criticized more harshly for their looks. That said, Stanford Law School professor Deborah Rhode cautions, “What the election made clear is the persistence of these views,” adding that Trump has “legitimized them.”

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Women who complain about their treatment are criticized as “whiny or humorless,” says Rhode. Studies show that comments about female politicians “negatively influence public opinion,” she says, and that “demeaning press coverage may contribute to women’s reluctance to expose themselves to potentially bruising political campaigns.”