Ignore what the media would have you think, politics is not a 'man's game'
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Version 0 of 1. It has been an election campaign balanced on a knife edge and nobody can confidently say what the outcome will be. But what we do know is that this closest of political battles has not been entirely fairly fought. Female candidates from all parties have been subjected to prejudice and appalling sexism from the media, other candidates and voters over the past months. For Sturgeon, the attacks started before her first day in office. As soon as she was tipped to succeed Alex Salmond as party leader in 2014, one national newspaper focused on her fashion transformation, “from death-row hair and awful trouser suits” to “sleek as an otter”. Another mused on her potential “baby hopes” while in office. They set the tone for a string of indefensibly misogynistic attacks, which have only intensified in recent months. Sturgeon has been described as “the wee lass with the tin helmet on” by a Labour MP, and a “wee woman” by the Daily Mail, which also claimed she had become “sexier with age, income and office”. The Times reacted to the launch of her SNP manifesto with a detailed analysis of her hair, makeup, clothes and weight loss. She’s suffered an up-close cartoon of her breasts with Ed Miliband drawn tucked in her cleavage, and seen her face photoshopped onto a semi-naked Miley Cyrus-esque wrecking ball image. Another doctored and highly sexualised image, of Sturgeon’s head on Kim Kardashian’s body, was even tweeted by the BBC Newsnight Twitter account. It’s almost as if the media were so scared of Sturgeon’s political prowess that they had to resort to tearing her down on the grounds of her sex instead. Other female leaders have also been the victims of sexist attacks, sometimes en masse. A cartoon after one leaders’ debate featured Ed Miliband as James Bond with Sturgeon, Natalie Bennett, the Green Party leader, and Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader, fawning around him, depicted as near-identical Bond girls in cleavage-baring, split-thigh dresses, with the headline “Sisterhood politics won’t be ladylike”. As the debate got underway, one of the Independent newspaper’s first tweets (quickly deleted) commented on the amount of makeup Sturgeon was wearing. The Metro followed suit, tweeting: “‘Sexy’ Leanne Wood has Twitter Swooning with her Accent”. The accompanying article had its title swiftly altered after Twitter users pointed out the sexism. However, the article itself, describing Wood as a “heart throb”, remained. The very idea of a political debate involving three women seemed too much for some to cope with. Writing in the Guardian, on Miliband’s three left-wing challengers, Michael White described it as a “startling fact” that they were all women and seemed surprised that they had not “inherited Thatcher’s taste for frugal economics”, as if their sex alone should have allied their political views. He also described the debate as “ridiculously unbalanced”, partly because “there were three women” involved. An article in the Telegraph described the female leaders as variously “squeaking”, “scowling” and “snapping”, and gratuitously played on Sturgeon’s sex to ridicule a potential alliance with Miliband as “a romance for our times”. The Daily Mail took this approach a step further, mocking up a Jackie magazine strip showing the two kissing in a passionate embrace. Meanwhile, Theresa May was profiled in a Telegraph interview that opened by describing her as an “ice queen” and declaring her “famous for her designer shoes and sharp suits”. And in Walthamstow, a Conservative election leaflet suggested that they should vote for Conservative candidate Molly Samuel-Leport over Labour candidate Stella Creasy because she is (among other attributes), a wife and mother, by comparison to Creasy, who is unmarried and childless. All this before even touching on the predictable reams of sexist tweets describing Harriet Harman as an “old bitch”, declaring Bennett “ugly” and playing “shag, marry, kill” with the three female leaders during the live TV debates. Yes, male politicians are given a hard time by the media – we’ve seen Ed Miliband lambasted for not being able to eat a bacon sandwich. But the nature of these attacks on political women is not only more sexualised, it is also far more frequent, and grounded in widespread, ingrained prejudice. While we still hear about Miliband’s policies and plans, the sheer amount of sexism facing Sturgeon is so great it takes valuable column inches away from discussing what she is actually saying. A recent study published in the journal Journalism Education found that media coverage of female politicians since 1992 has got worse, not better. In 2012, for example, Labour women received coverage that was four times more likely to be negative than Labour men. This has a very real impact, in a country in which women still make up fewer than a quarter of MPs. Writing in the New Statesman, the study authors concluded: “A press (and media) representation of women that serves to suggest politics is a ‘man’s game’ ... sidelines women representatives, puts off women from standing as candidates ... and alienates voters.” A recent study from the Fawcett Society also highlighted sexism as a common reason for women in local government roles to step down. When you stoop to attacking somebody on the grounds of their sex, you start to look like you don’t have any valid political arguments left. In fact, it begins to look as if you’re running scared. Perhaps what is most terrifying to some is that Wood, Sturgeon, Bennett and their female colleagues don’t only represent a serious political challenge, but also a threat to the very nature of Westminster politics. In an election this tight, your vote is more important than ever. It should be influenced by politics, not prejudice. |