Tag Archives: sexism

When a News Anchor Proves Sexism is Still Strong

You know that whole one step forward and three steps backward mentality? Yeah, our culture seems to do this with sexism and that’s just not here in the states, but globally.

By now, you may have heard the experiment an Australian news anchor for “Today” Karl Stefanovic sported the same blue suit for an entire year (a YEAR!) just to see if people would notice, since the comments from viewers have been relentless on his co-anchor, Lisa Wilkinson. The verdict? Not a soul noticed his repetitive ensemble for 365 days.

He comments:

No one has noticed; no one gives a $%*t. But women, they wear the wrong colour and they get pulled up. They say the wrong thing and there’s thousands of tweets written about them. Women are judged much more harshly and keenly for what they do, what they say and what they wear.

I’ve worn the same suit on air for a year –- except for a couple of times because of circumstance –- to make a point. I’m judged on my interviews, my appalling sense of humour – on how I do my job, basically. Whereas women are quite often judged on what they’re wearing or how their hair is … that’s [what I wanted to test].

 

I admire Stefanovic for conducting such an experiment, it was necessary in bringing, once again, the scrutiny women face daily and how their “legitimacy” of their thoughts and genius are often pushed aside based on how they look.

President of Barnard College and author of “Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection,” Debra Spar told The Huffington Post last year, “We are sadly still living in an era in which women’s looks are just much more subject to constant appraisal than is the case for men, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin and nearly every woman who has run for office wind up having their clothing and their hairstyles receive way more attention than they really should.”

I couldn’t agree more! A lot of this type of evidence is in the documentary, Miss Representation. If you haven’t yet seen it, it’s worth a viewing!

Here’s the clip from the Australian news cast where they reported on the anchor’s experiment.

Any one notice how uncomfortable they are with defining what sexism is?! *cringe*
Help the news anchors out! How would you define sexism? Let me know in the comments!
Me?  I tend to agree with sex education activist, Laci Green, on the topic of sexism. Sexism is the “exclusion and unequal power in society,” it effects both men and women.

A&F-ing It Up!

Sure Abercrombie and Fitch has faced scrutiny for its racy advertisements and parent backlash of the NSFS (not safe for school) tees. However, I still shopped there when I was a teen—around age 14. All of “those” surfer chic with a touch of prep-in-its-step brands were all the rage in high school. Its true! If you wore those brands or any “in brand” (see: PacSun) then you were stylish and on trend… and I guess “cool.”

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I grew out of these brands, literally, when I was a freshman in college. I knew it was time to abandon the brands when all I could find was the occasional sweater in a size large which, if I remember correctly equated to about a size small in most department stores. These popular brands no longer carried the sizes for my curves—curves, which by the way I was happy to have! ::twerks::

Then there was the hellish shopping experience. Between all the tweens geeking out at all the crude tees, the overly polluted stench in the air (aint no body needs to wear that much cologne), the heat, and the necessity to BYOHeadLamp to see what-the-what they were even selling. I was over shopping there and apparently so was A&F’s Jackassery of a CEO, Mike Jeffries, who is making headlines this week due to a Business Insider story  about how they don’t want XL females shopping at their stores because they aren’t “cool” or “beautiful.”

Enter stage right: My get fired up pissed off WRITE-IN-ALL-CAPS-ABOUT-HOW-ABSURD-THIS- (gary busey doppelganger) MAN-IS Thoughts. GAH, LOUD NOISES. But first a statement from the CEO who has the gonads to actually run a company based on these bullying principles.

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either,” Jeffries told Salon in an interview in 2006.

Want to know why Jeffries’ crazypants are on a bit too tight for today’s standards?, thought you might, click to continue reading