Ms. Spruill noted that Ms. Conway had leaned back to take pictures as a favor to the participants, but that some critics had cast the pose as a sexual come-on.

Ironies abound. Ms. Conway is loathed by many Clinton aides as the architect of a presidential campaign that they felt used overtly and implicitly sexist messages. Mr. Trump repeatedly denigrated women for their appearance and, after taking office, directed his female staff members to “dress like women.”

Many conservative women, from Sarah Palin to Ann Coulter, have emphasized their femininity to distance themselves from feminists, whom they accuse of hating men. In a recent interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ms. Conway said she supported many feminist principles but said she would not call herself one because feminism is anti-male, pro-abortion and identified with the left.

“I think some of the reticence that might be coming across in not a huge chorus of defense of Kellyanne Conway in the face of these sexist comments is the feeling that she doesn’t have our back,” said Gillian Thomas, a senior staff lawyer of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“It’s a shame,” Ms. Thomas continued. “If women were more united and speaking up at this behavior, including when it’s perpetrated by the left, we’d all be a lot better off.”

Ms. Conway suggested in an interview with The Daily Caller that there would have been more outrage at the comments if she had been a liberal woman, adding, “And it is not just if I were a liberal woman, but if I were a pro-abortion one.” Ms. Conway did not respond to a message left with her assistant requesting comment for this article.

Still, Ms. Conway has spirited defenders on the right on social media who say she should be championed as an example of a groundbreaking woman in politics instead of mocked in sexist terms, and some liberal women in Facebook comments chided others for sexism.