To succeed in news casting, women must have fuckability—according to newsman John Westacott. This sexist boss also told his news team that “Sheilas do health and consumer stories. You want your blokes, your main guns, doing the real news stories.“
For those of us opposed to sexism, 2008 was a difficult year. In addition to the comment above and the sexist accusations swirling around Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gov. Sarah Palin, a scientific study suggested that sexist men make more money for the same work than non-sexist men and women make.
And who can forget John Molony, the mayor of the small town that had a shortage of women? He suggested that the women who lived in his town were happy to be there, and he invited other women to his town no matter what they looked like because “beauty is only skin deep.” In 2008, how can a political leader get away with saying that a woman’s value is not based on her physical beauty? What a sexist jerk.
Mayor Molony’s remark was so offensive that he earned The Golden Ernie—an annual award given for the most sexist remark in Australia, as judged by 400 women at a special dinner. In fact, the mayor beat out John Westacott—the newsman described above who also told one of his female news casters that if she wanted a promotion that she “needed bigger tits.”
Mayor “Sexist Pig” Molony’s full remarks:
May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa. Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face. Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness. Often those who are beauty-disadvantaged are unhappy with their lot. Some, in other places in Australia, need to proceed to Mount Isa where happiness awaits. And, really, beauty is only skin deep. Isn’t there a fairy tale about an ugly duckling that evolves into a beautiful swan?
Mayor Molony clearly insulted the women of Mount Isa: he said they were ugly—happy but ugly. What is not so clear is how his remarks were sexist. Sexism comes in three forms: chauvinism, irrationally attributing behavior and qualities to gender, and inappropriate discrimination.
The most obvious type of sexism is chauvinism—a general belief that one gender is superior to the other gender. A variation is the belief that a gender-specific quality is superior to the gender-specific qualities of the other gender. Freud’s ridiculous hypothesis that women have penis envy, for example, is sexist. Or the belief that women are superior to men because they can have babies is also sexist. John Westacott’s belief that women should not deliver “real” news stories is another great example. Mayor Molony’s statement is not chauvinist, however, because he does not suggest that men are better than women.
The second category of sexism can be a bit more subtle than the first—any irrational link between gender and a specific quality or behavior is sexist. Asserting that women are bad drivers, for example, is sexist because it irrationally connects bad driving with gender—even if one could “prove” that women drive worse than men drive, the bad driving would not be the result of gender. Linking driving to gender is irrational, and sexist. Saying that women generally have higher pitched voices than men, by contrast, is not sexist because women (as a group) do have higher pitched voices than men because of gender differences in humans. Linking gender to that quality is not irrational—and not sexist. (I do not call this sexism category “stereotyping” because some stereotypes are accurate, therefore not sexist.) Mayor Molony did not irrationally link any specific quality to femininity with his statement. In fact, he unlinked physical beauty from gender by suggesting that physical beauty was not important to being a happy woman in Mount Isa. Therefore, his statement did not fall into the second category of sexism.
Mayor Molony did imply that men generally prefer to marry beautiful women, but because of the shortage in Mount Isa, the men would settle for “beauty disadvantaged” women. At first glance, this implication appears sexist: heterosexual men tend to value attractive women more than ugly women. Still, it is not sexist to try to marry the most attractive mate possible. Babies prefer beautiful people. Not just male babies prefer beautiful women—all babies prefer beautiful people of both genders. Employers promote beautiful people. Teachers think beautiful students are more intelligent. Again, this is not about gender: teachers of both genders give higher grades to students of both genders if the students are attractive. There may be many reasons why beauty is preferred by babies, employers, teachers, and spouses, but it is not a sexist view: both genders prefer beautiful people of both genders in most situations. Mayor Molony was not sexist when he observed that beautiful people, not just women, have an easier “lot” in life.
The last category is when people inappropriately discriminate based on gender. Refusing to hire a qualified woman for a construction job simply because of gender is sexist because it is inappropriate to base a hiring decision on gender. Giving directions to the women’s restroom (instead of the men’s restroom) when a woman asks for directions to “the restroom” is not sexist because it appropriately uses gender to make decisions about how to treat someone. Interestingly, nothing in Mayor Molony’s statement fits into this category either.
Yes, Mayor Molony insulted the women of Mount Isa by calling them ugly, but his statement was not sexist. Sexism hurts women as a group, and Mayor Molony insulted a large group of women, so many people naturally thought his remarks were sexist.
Nevertheless, there is a sexist, and ironic, part to Mayor Molony’s award: the award itself is unintentionally sexist to women. To see why, imagine that Mayor Molony did not call the Mount Isa’s women ugly—instead he said that they were all bad singers and that all bad singers should move to his town and be happy. If he had said women in his town were tone deaf instead of ugly, no one would have called him sexist. In fact, imagine that he said the women in his town were the most beautiful women in the Outback, but they were all terrible singers. Most people would view that as a compliment to the women of Mount Isa.
According to some people, if he calls a group of women ugly, then he is sexist, but if he calls them tone deaf, then he is not sexist. This interpretation is only possible if one believes that physical beauty is an essential quality of femininity. This is the second category of sexism: irrationally linking a specific quality (beauty) to gender. And it is irrational to connect physical beauty to femininity: are old, ugly women lesser women than young, beautiful women? Of course they are not lesser.
Obviously, the Australian women who gave the award to Mayor Molony did not intend to make a sexist statement, but by calling his insult a sexist remark, they unintentionally declared that ugly women are lesser women than beautiful women. Mayor Molony owes the women of Mount Isa an apology for his insult, and the women of Australia owe Mayor Molony an apology for their sexist accusation. Erroneously calling Mayor Molony’s remarks sexist makes it harder to fight real sexism, and setting the record straight will undoubtedly help.
