A Girl Named Katie
I’ve been meaning to get to this for days.
The Telegraph - Katie Couric is right to criticise sexist US, by Catherine Elsworth
Katie Couric, America’s highest earning television news anchor, has whipped up quite a storm with her comments that she, like Hillary Clinton, is a victim of sexism.
The presenter of CBS Evening News (who has a 72 million dollar five-year contract to host the show) told an Israeli paper she found herself in “the last bastion of male dominance and realising what Hillary Clinton might have realised not long ago: that sexism in American society is more common than racism and certainly more acceptable or forgivable”.
The 51-year-old, whose news show trails in the ratings, has not surprisingly been bashed for that “last bastion” comment. Plenty of other male-dominated jobs where women face arguably tougher challenges spring to mind. …
All women in the public eye, including Couric, are subjected to savage scrutiny of her appearance, wardrobe and personal life.
And yet since our Katie got to be America’s highest earning television news anchor because of her “appearance, wardrobe, and personal life” (or rather, for being blond, perky, and, ah, female (let’s not forget why she made an appropriate counterpart to Matt Lauer (and let’s also not forget she got her Today job because the previous babe had a baby))), I’d say there’s a trade-off there.
Update!
The NYT ran a story on sexism in the media in the “Style & Fashion section!
Bwahahah!
July 27th, 2008 at 10:23 am
I just have to comment on this, not because of the subject matter, but because of the fact that you used an incredible triple parenthetical:
“(or rather, for being blond, perky, and, ah, female (let’s not forget why she made an appropriate counterpart to Matt Lauer (and let’s also not forget she got her Today job because the previous babe had a baby))”
You messed up a bit, though, and forgot to close the third one… or the first one, I’m not sure…
July 27th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Woah, you’re right! I forgot to close the second one. It was the second one, because when I glanced up to count my open parentheses, the first and third sit right above one another in the editing field and the second one is way off to one side up against the sides of the box. But it could also be the first one, because I was only counting because I felt like I’d forgotten one, and it was the first one that I’d forgotten. /Ashamed
July 27th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
No harm no foul, blame it on the typesetter.