Ron Elving in “Palin Proves Worthy of Her (Current) Role” posted at NPR. evaluates Palin’s debate performance and declares her worthy of her current role as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate. He describes Biden as “a man in his mid-60s” and Palin as “clearly two decades younger and, it must be said, strikingly attractive for a governor of any state.”
If you equate age with experience, I suppose a comparison of the candidates’ age is a fair criteria to consider. This can be achieved by simply noting that Palin is in her mid 40s or that Palin is two decades younger than Biden. However, Elving’s sexist comment, doesn’t merely state the age difference between the candidates, he goes on to offer his irrelevant appraisal of her physical appearance.
The adverb “clearly” immediately raises my feminist hackles, as it suggests that Palin appears more youthful than Biden. Why does Elvin feel it must be said that Palin is strikingly attractive? And why must his assessment of her looks then be qualified by “for a governor of any state.”?
Sexist commentary on the physical appearance of female politicians have no place in journalism. Can Elving support his appraisal of Palin? Has he rated the attractiveness of all 50 United States governors? Or was he only comparing the appearance of female governors?
Reporting that includes inappropriate observations about the attractiveness of candidates, threatens to turn political campaigns involving female candidates into beauty contests. We must remain vigilant to sexist language in political reporting, and we must protest every infraction.
Contact NPR here.
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I wrote and complained. Thank you for pointing out this blatant sexism (he gets announced for experience, she gets announced for appearance? Is this an NPR pageant?).
In order not to appear biased, news organizations are required to say at least as many nice things about the Republican as the Democrat. If you're looking for something nice to say about Palin, you're pretty much restricted to her looks.
I wrote and complained too.
@Aleks' comment:
By that logic, NPR would be commenting about McCain's suits, combover, stature...and we don't see that happening, now do we? This isn't about Republican vs. Democrat; it happened to Hillary Clinton, too. You can't deny this has everything to do with them being women.
This reminds me when both McCain and Obama made thier appearances on The View. McCain was asked the usual hard hitting questions like you would hope from any kind of journalist. Obama was asked such hard hitting questions like "How is it that you are so sexy?"
What about agism? Just because someone is older doesn’t mean they would make a better leader. And while in may say something about experience, experience means without the prove of any wisdom you have gained from it.
Of course, let’s be realists and not idealist here, everyone will judge you on how you look. And a well-kept attractive person will receive favoritism in any walk of life. However, it won’t get you everything. Palin may be attractive, but let’s face it, she’s a nut bar too. So her attractive looks won’t get her very far, even with men.
Sexism sucks. What is even worse is that some of my most liberal male and female friends act like I am making this all up so that I get them to feel sorry for Palin. I don't even like Sarah Palin, so it always takes me aback when I get attacked for trying to do my part as a feminist by not contributing to or standing by sexism. I had never thought about it before, but it is strange how often Obama's looks come up. However, in a male, is seems that being attractive is not necessarily a one-way pass to sexual-exploitation or jokes or dirty, dirty comments from the media and other sources.