Thursday, September 03, 2009

I Luvz Dan Rather Today



Jezebel posts a video about Morning Joe discussion on women anchors. Do watch it and read the attached post. What I noticed, with that third eye of mine, was not only the division of labor where Mika Brzezinski was the one to say all the concern-trolling stuff about how women are not ready etc. but also the enormous gender differences in clothing. Now, I have no idea if men are told to wear dark testosterone-impregnated pinstriped suits and women something feminine, but it's certainly the case that the dress parameters, among many other things, differ by gender in television-land.

It's worth noticing all that. And I love Dan Rather (just momentarily, being parched for support) because he's fairly open and honest in that chat.

Oh. I almost forgot the other reason to write about this: Mika Brzezinski's words about women being promoted too young or when they are not ready may or may not be true in television-land, what with the desire to have hawt anchor-babies. But women everywhere know that employers who don't promote women won't explain it as a natural conclusion arising from their sexism. They give other reasons for it, such as the woman not just being ready for a promotion. Therefore, every time we hear those arguments we should examine them carefully. This is something that matters to a woman wanting to get promoted from a factory-floor position to one that pays just a little bit more.