1 post tagged “condescension”
On the list of Things You Really Shouldn't Do To Me, above 'pulling my streaks to see if they're real' and 'asking me if I'm ever going to finish my book', is 'be condescending', particularly about the whole being female issue. Luckily, the few people who've ever tried that have generally been such poor specimens of humanity that they've deserved my pity rather than my incendiary wrath. (Hence why they all remain alive and retain their limbs.)
Today, however, I got a letter.
More specifically, my mother and myself both received letters, from the wife of the politician seeking re-election in our constituency. (Draw me not upon the inanities of Australian elections. Politics here is 99% blather and 1% small children asking about cactuses.) My brother and father, also sometime residents of this address, were left wholly unmolested by said wife, whose letterhead includes a photograph of herself looking Glamorous But Relatable. If you're noting a gender pattern here, congratulations, five points to you; but it gets better.
Said letter runs to two pages, and contains absolutely no reference to her husband's politics AT ALL. (I scoured it.) What it does contain is a thorough, wifely, hearts-and-flowers account of her husband's character: his father's death, his unprivileged upbringing, his 'commitment to family life' through their 25 years of marriage. 'I thought it was important', says Wife, 'for you to have the opportunity to hear about the Malcolm I know and love.'
I, being approximately as sentimental as a particularly craggy boulder (I found My Girl mawkish and am often found being sarcastic to small children), find this disgusting. I also, however, find it insulting, and this is why:
One, obviously women are complete political ignoramuses, and need to be provided with special letters all of their very own (oh! how charming! a note from the Mayoress!) outside the normal political commentary of newspapers, television and the general media to make them participate in a big ol' election. No, it takes a woman-to-woman talk to get us interested in that boring rubbish.
Two, because I am a woman voter, defined by my soft heart and good feelings towards my fellow members of breast-kind, I will of course respond with avid sisterhood to a woman's touch in any political material, rather than that scary rough-ridin' tobacco-chewin' yippie-ki-yay masculine discourse they have in them scary newspapers. I mean, EVIDENTLY. I need something I can read whilst fanning myself gently upon the verandah, which won't stain my petticoats.
Three, the central thing to think about when going after my vote is that I am a WOMAN, a woman whose chief concerns are making babies, beds and buns. The letter contains the assurance that 'Malcolm understands that it is vital for women to have a good work-life balance', because it is of course completely self-evident that for a woman, 'life' and 'work' are two diametrically opposed things which require balancing. (Probably many career women without children would find it slightly surprising that they don't actually have a life; we should be glad of the Mayoress's touching generosity in letting them know. Unless, of course, they are lesbians, which in Australia apparently equates to 'single woman with minimalist taste in interior design'.)
Of course, being as I'm a tender-hearted woman and all, it seems obvious that my sympathies with regard to voting are located in my personal feelings about the politician's life (oh, he has children, that's nice, oh, his father died, how tragic) rather than in my opinions about, you know, ACTUAL POLITICAL STUFF. Women? Opinions? What a farcical idea; the stress of it makes me swoon! My stars, where are the smelling salts, Ellie-May?
The Wife may be slightly shocked to know that I find her husband's stance on the Kyoto protocol intriguing, and wonder how he reconciles his Catholic beliefs with his stance on abortion. She would probably be surprised by the fact that I read the Economist rather than knitting booties for my future children. What may startle her the most, though, is the idea that being treated like a woman is pretty much the opposite of what I want from my electorate.
Edit: This silly woman's emotivoting plea made the front page of the city's biggest newspaper, so uproarious was the response. No mention, though, of how it was only sent to women, which makes me hope desperately, for the fate of my electorate, that said gender discrimination was a mistake. Unfortunately, I still have my doubts.
