'Iran's cover up. Baroness Ashton, the EU Foreign Minister, has been given a more modest neckline in Iranian newspaper coverage of the talks in Turkey over Iran's nuclear program. Who said that what women politicians wear does not matter?'
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Sorry crikey, but I think this a cheap and lazy shot, using our apparent enlightened attitudes to women to play on the 'us and them' (ie westerners and them) theme. Really, it's a bit rich of our media to pass judgement on the representation of women in this region's media.
...by 'this region' meaning the region in which I am currently physically located a place from which, on a clear day, I can see Iran.
Actually, TC, that is a rooly excellent point about western meeja not being in a position to take cheap shots at other people's. Point taken. But I do still find the doctoring of the neckline appalling. (Though of course it may be a doctored story, which would ratchet up the appalling another few notches.) Having just finished a novel with the beautiful title of Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela (DOB 1964), which is an excellent novel but whose author seems none too fussed about either male polygamy or female circumcision (I read several interviews with her, as well as her book), I'm still hoping to be able to go on registering my horror at the treatment/representation of women in many Middle Eastern countries without being accused of being an Islamophobe (which I'm not, as such) but I gravely fear that I am fighting a losing battle there.
I read this and went away and thought about it. I do find it offensive, but not any more so than the doctoring/airbrushing that is common in our media's presentation of women. And as far as I am aware, only women. Grrr. In both cases it seems that portrayal of women needs to be 'adjusted' so that they appear acceptable or in the best light. Am I being unreasonable?
Word verification is jumbio - the last thing it is acceptable for a woman to be!
PC, I agree that it is difficult, verging on impossible, for us to write about such issues without being accused of Islamophobia, and bollocks articles such as this do nothing to create an environment in which it will ever be otherwise. I'm really quite pissy about it, because it does such a good job of entrenching division in so many ways (including gender). The world can do without it. Interesting that crikey itself is today bemoaning the '"Arab Street" stereotypes'.
Funny that we should gasp at ME picture editors adding a bit of black to give someone a higher neckline but every fashion/"celebrity" magazine, as Chicken Hearted points out, has young women whose images are sometimes manipulated to a point that would be incompatible with life if it were real. I can think of a couple of egregious examples but I'm too lazy to google them. But I find that picture much less icky than those Picciniesque bodily distortions.
Okay, I can see I shouldn't carry on with this one.
I actually think the doctored photo looks sartorially a bit better. But . . good point by Chickenhearted too.
I am appalled at women being judged by what they wear, and there's a lot more scope for fashion missteps in the world of women's clothing. I was appalled when GG (one now on postage stamp) gave Michelle Obama an unnecessary caning re her choice of clothing. Puhleese. I thought. However having made a comment somewhere about not judging women using the same criteria we judge men, I've been forced to think about how exactly I would start to differ, as normally I'd expect myself to believe there shouldn't be a difference.
All I can say from this photo is that I think the neckline is improved by the retouch and she looks a bit more like what she's trying to look like--like a man in a suit.
Somehow I don't think the 'retouching' had a lot to do with improving her style.
Would the retoucher's pen have been applied had the Iranian official been accompanied by, say, Don Dunstan wearing those shorts?
TFA
TFA, they might have. A couple of comments on the previous post have mentioned 'baggy trousers' and 'covering up between the navel and the knees'. But Dunstan would have known better. I think.
I've just had another look at the Crikey thing and actually I read it as not only divisive but also a bit of a dig at the people who go on obsessively about Gillard and her clothes.
There would be no need for airbrushing, because no one would go to a meeting in these parts in a pair of shorts. The people you were meeting probably wouldn't even meet you.
Exactly, that's what I meant when I said Dunstan would've known better. Actually, while it would never have occurred to me that the Baroness's neckline was too low, I was a bit surprised to see her wearing pants in that context -- is this what a culturally sensitive woman would wear, or is she making some sort of statement?
I don't know about the protocol and so on, but pants suits do seem to be common for women in these kinds of situations. Mind you, all of my visual experience is from here, and it's much more relaxed here than in neighbouring countries.
Omg she looked like such a skank before
- SY
I once knew a film/tv producer/director who used to leave the bottom buttons on his shirt apparently carelessly undone, leaving a boyish triangle of bare flesh that consistently attracted heaps and heaps of attention: ie, it fulfilled its purpose.
In political or diplomatic roles, to my mind such as the baroness wore is inappropriate. The focus is on her brain, her thoughts, her principals, her ethics, her ideals, and she should not be highlighting her chest. On the other hand, ageing women -(speaking as one) - find it hard not to adopt any bit of youthful bling that they can get away with. She needs a down to earth advisor.
Of course, this is quite different from the nonsense such as Caroline Baum's letter to the SMH on Thursday? Friday? deploring the vents in the rear of Julia Gillard's jackets.
See, I didn't think the neckline was very low -- it was the pants I wondered about, though I guess they are 'modest' in the sense that they aren't tight and they cover her legs.
Re Caroline Baum -- she's a bit of a special case, to my mind, because she's always been right into clothes and fashion as such. I think there's some sort of family connection with Vogue. My guess would be that her comments were intended in a less sexist way than they came across, and that she would have made the equivalent remarks about a male PM if she thought he was badly dressed. Which doesn't mitigate the effect of it at all, I know.
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