http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/?fr=uh3_screen_vert_gs&p=snl+palin%20clinton&fr2=cosmos
The issues regarding gender equality are still at the forefront of society's concerns. There are many areas of life in which women are treated vastly different than men. Though, legally, men and women are equals, women are often treated much differently than their male counterparts, specifically in politics.
This skit from Saturday Night Live surfaced during the 2008 presidential race. Hillary Clinton was a presidential nominee and Sarah Palin was the running mate for Senator John McCain. Having two women come so close to the White House was unique and monumental for America, so it is natural that the role of gender plays a larger role in the media's coverage of the campaigns. However, this skit argues that although both women held highly respected positions in the political sphere, they were still reduced to their physical appearances.
In this skit, both women list various names they were called and labels that were placed on them. All of the names, both complimentary and insulting, were regarding their appearances and completely unrelated to their political views. This signifies the essentialism women experience in society. No matter the woman's occupation, her appearance will always be a dominating factor. By labeling the women as "beautiful" or any of the other appearance-related descriptions mentioned in the skit, their political messages were completely disregarded. This skit shows that the media was so fixated on the politician's attractiveness that their coverage of the campaigns lacked emphasis on their political platform. At one point in the skit, Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton says, "I didn't want a woman to be president. I wanted to be president and I just happen to be a woman." This shows how the emphasis on gender and the appeal of the female candidates detracted from the real purpose of the political race. In fact, I googled "Hillary Clinton Hair" and it turns out that there is even a twitter page dedicated to the former presidential nominee's hair. It seems that the media is obsessed with the outward appearances of females, even those in highly respected political positions. This is a very unique situation that women experience. This skit argues that women, no matter their professional position, are often reduced to the value of their appearances.
Male as 'normative' is a tough struggle for anyone to break out from. It is too bad that women, even in politics, are critiqued not just by their politics, but also by their appearances, it also reminds me of how the first lady's (senators, governors, president, etc) are used for their appearance and how they make their husband's look in the eyes of society.
ReplyDeleteMost recently, the news headings for the government shutdown read "Women US senators lead compromise efforts on shutdown" stating in the articles that the women were able to come to a compromise because they 'get together for dinner' and 'have informal talks'. At first I thought, wow that's cool that women got the job 'done' but then I started to think about how the articles were differentiating women from men by saying 'of course women can band together, they're women' and then the title of the articles saying specifically "women US senators" and not just 'a small group of senators'. It all is pointing out how 'society' sees women as being the 'other sex' when compared to men.