Sexist or Not?
Cidu Bill on Nov 18th 2009
Sarah Palin complained that this week’s Newsweek cover is sexist, and… well, I think I sort of agree, though we might be dealing with semantics here: Certainly Newsweek chose this particular photo with the inten of trivializing Palin (the photo is real, but was taken earlier this year as part of a spread for Runner’s World magazine). And they probably wouldn’t have used this sort of photo to trivialize a male politician (can you imagine a cover story about Obama’s domestic policy agenda being illustrated with this?
So if using a “sexy” cover photo of a female politician is a context where you wouldn’t use one of a male politician is sexist, then I find myself in the odd position of siding with Palin.
Of course what I found most interesting about all this was Palin’s comment on the cover, ending with “If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin” — clear proof, I guess, that she writes her own material. I mean, I sort of maybe know what she’s kind of getting at here, but…
And actually what makes that quote more interesting is the fact that it was written (apparently) on the same day that she vigorously defended racial profiling on the Sean Hannity show.
Filed in Barack Obama, Bill Bickel, Fort Hood, Fox News, Newsweek, Runner's World, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, media, politics, polls, racial profiling | 43 responses so far
