Scarlett Sticks It To The Man

In a new interview with Cosmopolitan Magazine, Scarlett Johansson took a dig at the mainstream media for its sexist behavior towards Sen. Hillary Clinton during her primary campaign. In the article ScarJo says-

“Seeing how the media portrayed Hillary [Clinton] with unbelievable sexism – some of the things that people were saying were just so overwhelming. You just couldn’t believe the names that they were calling her!”

I think it’s great that Scarlett is drawing attention to something that I felt was rather unnecessary during the primaries. Unfortunately the sexism towards Hilary is still continuing, especially in the media’s silly comparisons of the ‘old’ and ‘tough’ Hillary to the ‘young’ and ‘hot’ Sarah Palin.

But are Scarlett’s comments really that surprising? You don’t need a degree in gender studies to have noticed the media’s sexist attitude towards female politicians. They seem to have been at it since women began moving into public office.

This video by the Women’s Media Center says it all. Brilliant!

What’s Wrong With This Headline?

You will most likely have read over the past two days that Victorian Labor MP Theo Theophanous (also one of the minority of Victorian MPs to vote against abortion law reform) has stepped down amid allegations of sexual assault. From today’s Age coverage:

THE woman whose allegations have forced senior state cabinet minister Theo Theophanous to step down has told of being raped by him — inside Parliament House — in 1998.

The woman said Mr Theophanous sexually assaulted her after she accepted his invitation to show her around the Spring Street building late one night. Mr Theophanous denies the allegations.

In other words, it’s clear that – at this stage – the woman’s claims are allegations only. So why the need to bring out the judgy judgy quotation marks, eh, Age sub-editors?

The article makes it clear that the allegations are, as mentioned before, allegations, so there’s no need for the added punctuation. In the woman’s eyes, she was raped, plain and simple. She wasn’t “raped”, as though it’s some imaginary concept.

It may seem like semantics, but we have regularly discussed the use of passive and judgemental language in newspapers’ reporting of rape cases and I can’t help but feel they contribute, along with protracted and often nightmarishly unfair court cases, to the climate that makes women feel they can’t report rapes. Which, in this instance – where the woman spoke to The Age about having been too afraid to speak up about her alleged assault for ten years – makes the headline even more unnecessary.