In what workplace is it ok for the employees to vote publicly on who’s the sexiest? Australia’s Parliament House.
The Courier-Mail reports:
Kate Ellis, the vivacious federal Minister for Youth and Sport, has been chosen as Australia’s sexiest MP in a poll of her political peers.
And in a double victory for “girl power”, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has emphatically out-rated Kevin Rudd to be crowned “best performer” in Parliament. […]
Meanwhile Ms Gillard – who recently admitted to attracting a fair degree of attention from older men when she visits RSL clubs – was the clear winner as best performer.
Most Quotable Comment comes from Andrew of Ipswich, who writes:
Gillard seems to come from the same school of beauty as helen clark – and needs to work on her femininity if she wants to be seen anything more than a socialist who considers reasonable levels of beauty to be capitalist.
What a winner. Line up, single Hoydenizens with reasonable levels of beauty!
Categories: gender & feminism, Politics
QOTD for IWD: Aung San Suu Kyi 
Grabbing somebody is Assault, and sexual touch makes it Sexual Assault. Stop minimising this. #rapeculture101 
BFTP Friday Hoyden: Emma Goldman 
96th Down Under Feminists Carnival 
Hoyden About Town 
Oh wow … I … um. Wow.
I recently criticised and subsequently unsubscribed from a local news site for doing this very thing with regards to the candidates for the recent ACT election (their defence was that they “rated the men as well” – although strangely none of the men ‘won’ – and so therefore I must be “insane”).
And now I discover that our politicians do it to themselves, as well.
Is it just me? Or is this further evidence of the complete lack of understanding in Australian society of what “equality” and “sexism” actually are?
Oh, and I already know all the excuses – “we were just having a bit of fun”, “the women all joined in too”, “we rated the men as well” (now where have I heard that one before I wonder?), “lighten up a little”, “we didn’t mean to offend anybody”.
I’m not just shocked. I’m sad. And I’m beginning to lose hope for an equal, fair, unbiased Australian society, when even our sitting politicians are not able to rise above this type of behaviour.
L
*sigh* The youngest female MP in parliament is also voted the hottest – what a shock! And I bet she’s glad all this additional focus is being devoted to her appearance rather than her work. /sarcasm
The Gillard/Ellis dichotomy really just emphasises that no matter how attractive or unattractive, “feminine” or unfeminine, a woman can never possess the “right” level of sex appeal to not have that sex appeal debated.
So how would that work? Laborites, Liberals, Greens, and Nationals all give the highest ratings to people in their own party, and the Independents just go for whoever suits them, I guess.
And maybe Malcolm Turnbull rates himself the sexiest?
What gets me also is that there was some potentially really interesting material in the poll – who has most influenced you, what was the defining moment in politics in the last 25 years – and all that’s an afterthought used to pad out the “SEXIST MP” article.
Sorry to be frivolous, but I love the new ‘do. Very cool and minimalist. Must be the season; I’ve redecorated the blog as well.
Miss the link to the last posting though, but that’s not a complaint. Carry on.
This is why I love Hoyden. I sometimes feel that I am the only person in the country who can see anything wrong with constantly commenting on women’s appearances in any and every situation.
Sometimes I resort to quoting from Alice in Wonderland — “It’s rude to make personal comments” — just because it’s the briefest way I can find to try to point out how inappropriate it is. I don’t think it’s ever worked, but I’m going to keep trying.
I like how they classify a woman winning “sexiest MP” as a winner for “Girl power”. Seems like win for “heterosexual male power” to me.
I’ve only recently become really aware of how much attention is paid to women’s appearance as a matter of course: it seems it’s *impossible* to compliment a woman on anything without also saying how beautiful she is (or saying “..even if she isn’t very pretty”)
It’s not just their appearance, either.
In the car:
Me: You (kiwis) are having an election soon, aren’t you!
Somebody or other: Who is their Prime Minister again?
Kiwi niece 1: Helen Clark.
Kiwi niece 2: Mmmmmmm. Helen Clark. She’s got such a… deep voice, hasn’t she!
-Silence, except for the sound of my teeth grinding.
@ M-H:
Just curious to know exactly what you mean is all, M-H. Down the bottom of each post’s single page is a link to older/newer posts, if that’s it.
Sorry, Viv, I meant the link to the latest blog post. I rather liked following those when I had the time. But generally I like the way your comments work now better than before.
Crikey… I mean the latest blog post of the commenter. Hope that’s finally clear now!
@ M-H:
OK, with you now – that’s the “Commentluv” plugin. I do hope to get that back up and running again, I just wanted a couple of days of no commenting problems before introducing something which might bollix it again. Besides, I have no time until Friday at the earliest to do any troubleshooting which might be required. But I will give it a go then or on the weekend.
No rush. Thanks. See, now, you could have done it while the rest of Aus was stopped for The Race. 🙂