Well, no, no one actually said that. I just wrote that to try to show what it would look like if political reporting of men was similar to what women face.
I was shocked--shocked!--that I actually found a story at FAIR's website with which I agreed. This piece by Lucinda Marshall says pretty much what I said after Democrats won the House and Grandma--er, Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker-in-waiting.
Marshall points out that in a variety of articles about women in politics, we hear about their clothes before we even know who they are or why we should care.
When it comes to Patricia Mulroy, the general manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water District, we get the description before we even know her name, "a stylish older woman with short hair and discreet gold jewelry. That would be Patricia Mulroy." Richardson repeats the clothes-first, name-second structure with the last woman featured in the article, "a young woman in white slacks and a jean jacket" named Stephanie Herseth. Only then do we find out that she is a member of the United States Congress. Not once does Richardson refer to her as Congresswoman Herseth, she's just a young woman wearing white slacks and a denim jacket.
I'm just hoping nobody writes the story telling us Pelosi is pear-shaped.
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