Tuesday 14 October 2014

Labour leadership: Too many irrelevant judgements


1.  Why is it only the people who aren't straight white men who have a judgement based on something about their identity, something they can't change?

2.  To take the awful ones in order:

  • "Too gay" -  his sexuality is far from the only thing about Grant Robertson.  If this is a reference to the purported concern that New Zealand won't vote for someone who isn't openly heterosexual to be Prime Minister, then the problem is not that Grant is "too gay" but that NZ is too homophobic.  What does "too gay" even mean?  
  • "Too passed it" - nice to mix up the sexism and homophobia with a bit of ageism.  And shouldn't it be "past it"?
  • "Too many teeth" - because we all know that the most important thing about a woman is her appearance.  ARGH!  

3.  King, Ardern and Mallard have not even expressed any interest in running for the leadership.  Yet they get used to portray Labour as more divided than it actually is (which is, it seems, somewhat divided, but not so divided as to actually have 9 different candidates for leader)

4.  Why not Minnie Mouse? ;-)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"...we all know that the most important thing about a woman is her appearance."

I don't agree with this statement but always wondered why a woman supposedly as successful and independant as Helen Clark had that photo-shopped picture on the Labour web site. I felt it was a false statement.

3:16

Rainbarrow said...

I know just what you mean about Minnie. Every time I see Mickey Mouse I think "why not Minnie"? Walt Disney could have made Minnie Mouse the main character of Steamboat Willie, but no, he had to go and use a male character. Yes Walt, because women are incapable of operating heavy vehicles! Disgusting sexism.

Andrew Dunn said...

And of course men are never judge by their appearance. If someone who is tall comes into an office (male or female), and lays down the law, they're called a leader.

If a short male does the same, there are grunts, and you hear "Short man syndrome"

If a male walks into an office and says he will never date a fat girl, and he is embarrassed to be seen with a fat girl, there would be outrage and rightfully so.

But if a woman says, she refuses to date short men, no one would bat an eyelid.

Male Heightism is the one ism that Feminism forgot.

In fact has their ever been a post written here on the subject?

Julie said...

Interesting derail attempt around the aspects of men's appearances that are judged. I wonder if the main reason for MALE HEIGHTISM (!!) is that being shorter is seen as a female physical trait.

3:16 the reality for people who are marginalised based on identity is that sometimes you have to do things that are counter-productive to overcoming discrimination in order to be able to survive as an individual.

Fey Hag said...

You can't cure trite banal or down right stupid even among journalists

ChundaMars said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ChundaMars said...

What a terrible cartoon. It's not clever, it's not insightful, and it's not funny.

3:16 - I wouldn't call Helen Clark's photoshopped teeth a "false statment" - unless someone's sole reason for voting for her was her teeth! - but it certainly was a shame it was done because it was so goddamn obvious that it kind of backfired by calling more attention to her teeth.

Julie - "I wonder if the main reason for MALE HEIGHTISM (!!) is that being shorter is seen as a female physical trait." I agree that the height thing was a derail, but Andrew certainly isn't making it up, so why the double exclamation marks? And I think you're stretching (no pun intended) it a bit with your reasoning for "heightism" or whatever we want to call it.

Formatting fail with previous comment, sorry

Anonymous said...

"Helen Clark's photoshopped teeth"

That was the most obvious bit but there were other mods to make her look what I would guess is "attractive" (I hate the shallowness of the general idea but she started it). Margaret Thatcher looked distinguished which is different to the effort Helen made. There's nothing like someone's lack of conviction.

3:16