Oh dear, Ian Swanson is having his misogynistic and sexists wiles again. Remember back in July when I took exception to his failure to mention any potential female candidates to fill John Barrett’s Lib Dem seat in Edinburgh West? Well he’s at it again.
The shortlist was announced yesterday, to be honest I was sitting on the news, at least until the party made any formal announcement. But the names are out in the Scotsman. In alphabetical order there are Mike Crockart, Paul Eadie, Siobhan Mathers and Euan Robson. All four are names that have been before the Edinburgh Electorate before at council, Scottish, Westminster and European levels. All are very able and capable candidates. All have sizeable CVs full of experience that would be helpful to be the next MP for Edinburgh West.
However, Mr Swanson used the following picture of one of the above:
“has a background in such and such profession, finished second to Labour's X in this election. Is married to Lib Dem councillor Y and has a two-year-old son.”
I’ve only hidden the identifiers for now all the other words are there. The others have:
A) The word key used
B) Deputy such and such
C) (Surprisingly) strong second in Z Election
Of course the second in the above quote was actually 1000 votes closer to winning than the one that was listed as strong but as you may guess from the tone of this piece, the quote is all Ian Swanson deemed to write about an able, energetic and strong female candidate.
He didn’t mention the marital or family status of any of the other candidates, no why should he? But also why should it be a matter for Siobhan? Margaret Thatcher was asked about her young family before she won her first election, but that was in the 50s.
Sexist, misogynist men of the world I’d recommend a job at the Scotsman, there you can live your idyll of 1950’s Scotland it would appear, where women could be kept in their place. Is it any wonder that the Scotsman is losing readers?
I have entered the running:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.irfanahmed.org/2009/09/i-am-running-for-parliament.html
You are weeks to laet to apply. We've got to the shortlisting stage now.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the family stuff was just filler to make up for the comparable lack of council/parliamentary experience of the candidate?
ReplyDeleteTo my shame, I read this article soon after it came out and this didn't cross my mind.
ReplyDeleteGood shout Stephen and although I agree with Stuart that they probably didn't have as much to write, they should have done better than 'she has a two year old son' as if that makes a difference.
Married to Charles Dundas? Fair enough, they're in the same party.
I remember the Scotsman had a woman magazine that was all shopping, make-up and hot guys.
The front page had the headline:
'should a politician's spouse pipe up or toe the line'
Incredible.