18/01/2009

I wouldn't do her either, but.

( ^ Repulsive, but still) Bit of an article on media sexism ..can't say I paid much attention til recently, with the whole presidential race and the amount of sex/attractiveness/womanliness-judgement comments thrown at the candidates going past the point of irony. ok, this is not going to go anywhere near a discussion of inherent gender differences, arguably innate perception and still quite relevant character judgements... but still. there were just so. many. better. reasons. to criticise Palin or Clinton than ones relative to our ideas of femininity. why do more male writers not get called out as being vapid when they come out with those kinda things? not that female journalists get it thrown at them too much either... umm.... update: women/media/perception of relationships ..but I'm hoping that the slights at Will Young (handbag / 'vanilla sex' - c'mon, everyone says vanilla these days, and I didn't know it came from that...) are some kinda irony. or is she just trying to even the balance? not sure this is the way to go about it. ok, I'm not gonna talk about sexism again. for a while.

2 comments:

TOMthinks said...

i think there are some bits in this that might be mildly relevant, specially the second half

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card

. said...

hey.. remember seeing this nearer to the time it came out, but at the time I think I was more in agreement with what they're implying... now it just seems like they're setting up easy arguments to be knocked down. which is fair enough, and needs to be done too, esp if it's gonna stimulate some discussion, but...

I think mixing up the Clinton/Palin-related footage, and Palin herself / Republican advisor footage makes a false juxtaposition* - 2 separate voices on 3 separate discussions means no one's really contradicting themselves, but is in the end to the effect of reinforcing the idea that you can't point out kinda wrong things without necessarily 'playing the victim'.. which is one of the main sexism debate problems in the first place. but then when it started out i thought this was what they were satirising, so did i just miss something?!



*(mainly that thing at the end with the woman who's a McCain advisor... tho obv the more straightforward contradiction jokes through the first 3/4 help set that up to lower our criticism barriers - sure as a rhetorical device this has a name but don't know what it is)