When Naming It Really Changes It
A couple of days ago we blogged about a columnist at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette including a description of Elizabeth Warren’s clothing from a campaign stop. We emailed the columnist, Dianne Williamson, to let her know that women candidates for office are unfairly covered for their appearance in a way male candidates rarely are.
We’re called “Name It. Change It” because we believe that by calling out sexism we can change the media. But we also understand that not all sexist coverage is intentional. Members of the media sometimes just haven’t thought about the differences in how they cover women compared to men. It doesn’t make it right, but it does mean that sometimes people respond positively when you point the sexism out. (Of course, it doesn’t always work).
But in this case we’re happy to say that Williamson does get it. She wrote a follow-up column entirely about the differences between Elizabeth Warren’s coverage and Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s. And we finally got the answer to “what color are Scott Brown’s eyes.”
Here’s an except but definitely read the whole column:
In my column on Sunday, I wrote the following about Warren, the Democratic candidate who will likely face off against Brown: Warm, personable and engaging, Warren excels at the meet-and-greet. Dressed on Thursday in a brown, quilted knee-length coat and simple gray pants, granny glasses perched smartly behind intelligent blue eyes, she hardly filled the “elitist hypocrite” moniker recently hurled her way by Scott’s Brown campaign man.
In hindsight, I, too, found that description cringe-worthy, mainly because I messed up and indicated that Warren somehow managed to position her granny glasses behind her intelligent blue eyes, which several alert readers were eager to point out would be quite an optical feat.
“Is this operation available at UMass, and if so, do you know if our health insurance would cover it?” asked Jeff and Jane Kelly. “What if we waited for Obamacare?”
I deserved that. But the Name It Change It project overlooked the flub and dressed me down — no pun intended — for writing about Warren’s clothes and eye color, calling it “just plain sexist.” Ouch.
Published by Kate McCarthy on 01/26/2012