The Crone Syndrome

Older women are just so not news worthy, it would seem.

Yesterday a 69 year old man allegedly murdered his 52 year old wife and two grandchildren in a small country town in the state of New South Wales. In the attack his policewoman daughter was also injured.

I first noticed a strange reference on the ninemsn website (which has since been taken down), from memory, the headline read: “Man kills grandchildren, attacks daughter” – hmm, no mention of the 52 year old woman who was also murdered. Righty-o.

Then today I came across this statement reported by National Nine News: “NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says the real tragedy of the alleged triple homicide is that children were involved as well as a serving member of the police force.”

Oh right – the older woman being murdered isn’t a real tragedy. Gotcha.

Adding Sexist Photos To Stupid Articles, It’s The News.com.au Way!

You probably read this piece about Australian women having tried “cyber sex”; it’s a trumped-up and sensationalised account of the research that forms part of a book published by Joan Sauer, The Sex Lives Of Australian Women. The book’s findings are probably very interesting, not that you’d really know by The Courier Mail’s treatment of it.

But what really pissed me off was not the “ooh, naughty!” tone of the article (ahem, the headline: “Aussie women get turned on by cyber sex”), which was published yesterday, but it was what news.com.au did with it on the front page of their site today:

Where do you start with this? Apart from, you know, the titillating “most of them have enjoyed it” (ooh, you dirty vixens!), how about the time honoured tradition of chopping a woman’s image up into faceless, objectified parts? (And not only parts, but ones dressed in ’slutty’ stockings and ‘CFM boots’, too.) Come on down, sexy legs!

Mourning The Democrats’ Passing? Blame The Party’s Women

According to this opinion piece – “Kernot factor rang the death knell” – by Dr Peter van Onselen, associate professor in politics and government at Edith Cowan University, in today’s Age and other Fairfax titles, if you’re looking for someone to blame for The Democrats’ recent demise, you’ve got plenty of people to choose from – provided they’re all women.

Van Onselen puts the boot into Meg Lees, Natasha Stott Despoja and Cheryl Kernot. He saves the worst for Kernot, who had the audacity to “defect” to Labor.

It’s true that all three made some potentially regrettable political decisions during their time in parliament, but the way van Onselen describes it feels less like a measured piece of political op-ed and more like a witch hunt. For example:

Stott Despoja failed her party, but not simply because she moved it to the left. She failed because having positioned the Democrats on the left she wasn’t able to compete in that territory with charismatic Greens leader Brown. With credibility built up fighting the proposed Franklin River Dam in Tasmania in the 1980s, Brown was a towering figure of the left.

God, the poor little girl – she couldn’t compete with the nasty man. It’s not the only time the piece has a decidedly unpleasant flavour:

Kernot’s actions reduced the Democrats to just another political party, its parliamentary members to just more politicians. She didn’t just diminish herself by shifting parties, she diminished the Democrat brand.

But the main reason Kernot bears the biggest responsibility for the demise of the Democrats is because the timing of her defection left the party without an obvious leader to take over. Lees did so, and did quite well at the 1998 election, but she was living on borrowed time. The high-profile Stott Despoja was too young to be leader when Kernot defected, but her time was fast approaching and Lees didn’t have the stature to hold her back. When Stott Despoja did take over the leadership, she had to do so in a coup. The decade of infighting that debilitated the Democrats was triggered by Kernot’s departure.

Damn, bitches, why you gotta waste that Democrat flava?

Smashing The Myth Of The Moustachioed ‘Lion Tamer’ (Sort Of)

The Age has a feature interview today with zookeeper Kathy Scanlon, who works at Werribee Open Plains Zoo. Scanlon is part of Werribee’s all-female lion keeper team, and has been working with Melbourne Zoos’ various zoological reserves for ten years. Part of her job is training and conditioning the lions to be at ease when around people, so that if they have to have a medical examination (for example), the experience is less stressful for them.

She is one of three lion keepers at the zoo — all are women — and an integral player behind the scenes of the big cats display.

So far, so good; I’m always pleased when careers features look at jobs for women that don’t include the usual teacher/nurse/PR options (not that there’s anything wrong with those, it’s just that sometimes you’d be forgiven for thinking they were the only options available to women).

It’s a shame, then, that Gordon Farrer (the writer) then has to resort to tired old sexism and cutie-pie prose to approach Scanlon’s work:

At about 165 kilograms each, Werribee’s two male lions — 12-year-old brothers Tonyi and Tombo — are smaller than their cousins in the wild, but they dwarf Scanlon, who scrapes in at 140 centimetres and 42 kilograms. She looks as if she’d have trouble blowing the head off a beer, yet with a few words the petite animal keeper has the beasts doing tricks worthy of the Ringling Brothers.

Right, because she’s clearly a tiny, precious little doll, playing with those lovely big pussycats!

Seriously, Farrar, what does her size have to do with anything here? She’s not picking up the lions and juggling them over her heads. Why not delve deeper into the subject – why not explore why it is that Werribee’s lion keepers are all female? Are women better suited to the role, or is it just coincidence?

The article gets better from there, but I couldn’t help but feel a bad taste in my mouth. When will a kick-ass woman ever be allowed to be just that in the eyes of the (largely male) media? Why is there always some little “remember, you’re just a girl” sting in the tail?

Yep, It’s Definitely A Slow News Week In Travel Writing

First the Ryanair “free blowjobs” (keep on Googling it, saddoes, we love the page impressions!) story stayed front page news on TheAge.com.au for three days and counting, now it seems news.com.au can’t come up with anything of note for their Travel section, either. So, they give you… “The World’s Sexiest Cities With The World’s Hottest Women“!

That’s right, folks, tourism is all about finding totally hot babes! This sad excuse for a “feature” continues, with a vaguely stalker-ish gallery noting what is so “hot” about that particular location’s “women”. For example, Tel Aviv! Says the caption (accompanying a picture of two women wearing lingerie):

“Gasp! … despite the gasmasks, Israel has some of the best looking women in the world, according to the Travelersdigest.com”.

And Copenhagen, what of its comely maidens?

“Copenhagen has some of the friendliest, and maybe even a little bit more sex orientated than their Swedish counterparts.”

And we all know what “friendly” means, don’t we, lads? Great! Thanks for the tip, news.com.au and Travelersdigest.com! Now I know where to book my holiday to when I stop Googling “free blowjobs on airplane”!

The Age: Office Stress Makes You Haggard… Or Something

They just keep kicking goals at the Fairfax Digital sites and today’s bit of photo editor brilliance comes from The Age. This article (syndicated from The Guardian) is about dealing with office stress, and how best to approach working with passive aggressive types; all good, sensible stuff.

But watch out, ladies, because those passive aggressive emails could be making you UGLY! Or at least, that’s what the accompanying image seems to be telling us:

“Mmm, that’s much better! Since I confronted my passive aggressive co-worker, my fine lines have been visibly reduced by up to 86% and I am free to wear this flattering beige lip-gloss again!”

Why is it that generic/stock photo images chosen to accompany business articles are so often a) perpetuating sexist gender stereotypes and b) totally pointless?