The Many Faces of Political Eve
Representations of Queensland Women Parliamentarians in the Media
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S132181660000413XKeywords:
Queensland women parliamentarians, media representations, assumptions and clichésAbstract
‘Forget Policy — I've Got Great Legs!’ That newspaper headline was one of the most interesting if not anomalous banners to appear during the 1998 federal election campaign. It was run in the Daily Telegraph as the header to an article about Pauline Hanson, who was busy campaigning for the Queensland seat of Blair in the state elections. As one might expect from the headline, the story dismissed any consideration of Hanson's political agenda in favour of blatant and highly sexualised comment about her very feminine physical attributes. Whilst this sort of media attention openly negated Hanson as a serious political force, it was indicative of the way the media had come to portray her since she arrived on the political scene two years earlier. Moreover, it was symptomatic of the media's widespread concern with portraying female politicians of all parties in accordance with worn-out assumptions and clichés, which rarely — if ever — were applied to their male counterparts.
References
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