Since her marriage to a certain Hollywood movie star in September of last year, Amal Clooney’s every move has been attentively followed and enthusiastically chronicled by gossipy tabloids and serious news media outlets alike.

The addition of A-list celebrity status to her stature in the world of international law and human rights activism has been a shot in the arm for the notoriety of every case or cause she’s turned her accomplished attention to. The controversy over the Elgin Marbles, the Armenian Genocide, the plight of prisoners apparently tortured by the British Army in Northern Ireland during the 1970s – it is unlikely that any of these would have received the attention they did and continue to receive were it not for Clooney’s Midas touch. Mrs. Clooney’s that is. Or is it?

For all the enormous benefits of Amal Clooney’s new-found celebrity, thrusting as it has both the cases she takes on as well as herself as one of the world’s most outstanding female role models into the limelight, it is perhaps an uncomfortable truth that our interest in her (or, at least, the media’s interest) derives primarily from the profile of the man she married in Venice. Articles about whatever her newest international human rights crusade is seem incapable of wrapping up without mention of George. Simply put, Amal Clooney is far more interesting to newspaper editors and TV producers than Amal Alamuddin ever was.

But does it matter how or why she was catapulted into the public arena? To an extent, no, it doesn’t. People of Clooney’s ilk are few and far between in the public eye – male or female – and to have her accomplishments appear in print branded with the name “George” is certainly preferable to not having them appear at all.

On another level, however, the ever-looming spectre of Mr. Clooney seems perverse. Rightfully held up as an impressive female role model, having reached the top of her profession (one many would consider traditionally male-dominated, at that) before the age of forty, that the foundation of Clooney’s notoriety is her wedding band seems to undermine the idea of female empowerment.

The reply may come that, outstanding as her achievements are, Amal Clooney’s profession is not one that ordinarily, if at all, rewards success with stardom, and that a man of her profession and standing in the same position would find reports of his accomplishments similarly qualified with references to his film star wife. It would be wrong then to admonish the media for reminding us why we know who Amal Clooney is.

This would be a perfectly palatable notion were it not for the fact that the substance of the articles in question are not typical tales of a glamorous Hollywood wife, but the particulars of her legal career. Having made the decision to devote column inches to her work at the European Court of Human Rights, mention of who she is married to is as incongruous as “Clooney is married to international lawyer, Amal” would be in an article detailing George’s being cast in an upcoming film. Having made the decision to deem her actual career newsworthy, to effectively say “and this is why you should actually care”, re-conjuring the image of that glitzy Venice ceremony seems demeaning.

Moreover, just because Clooney’s route into the public eye has been the thoroughfare of Hollywood celebrity doesn’t mean that, having now arrived, we cannot now divorce her notoriety from the means by which she attained it. Editors and readers alike can make the conscious decision to recognise that Amal Clooney is newsworthy in her own right even if it did take a Hollywood wedding to initially alert them to her existence.

For the world to have become acquainted with Amal Clooney and her work is quite clearly not a bad thing, and she will doubtlessly serve as a role model for many, female or otherwise. It is, however, important that the reasons why we should care about her accomplishment, and why we know who she is in the first place, are not conflated, but are instead carefully delineated.