I think these comments are quite true and need to be said because they mightn't be seen in the mainstream media. The potential damage done by the media's descriptions of women in powerful roles is balanced by the commonsense reactions of ordinary people such as voters and shareholders. I believe they see past the shoes and the spectacle frames and use their intuition to decide if they like and trust the person.
Maybe we'll see a trifecta - females as US president, Australian GG and finally, Australian PM.

It is sickening and disheartening that women's contribution to society is still measured by their hair, shoes, glasses, twinsets etc. Yet if they wore dull, staid clothes, they would again attract comment as being dull and staid themselves. Either way they are being treated dismissively and their contributions devalued. Is it because the media is still controlled by unintelligent males, unable to perceive that the world is moving on? Yet the number of female journalists surely indicate that decisions about what gets printed should be changing by now. How much responsibilty for lazy, unimportant stories should women be assuming? Quite a lot by the sounds of it. It is unacceptable from either gender.

I agree it's sad of our media to portray women like this, but the editors are not unintelligent people, they know what sells and that's their job. Have a look in any news agency, news stand and see all the women's magazines full of shallow sensational commentary. Show me any men's magazines that do the same, sell gossip, they don't exist.

We have a political system now whose main behavior seems to be the "daily spin battle", we have a PM whose press staff we know more about than any of his other advisors.

So what sells, to who is what counts - in this case, men are not interested in what women wear or how they generally look, women are.

While I agree that women are far more likely to be unnecessarily described by their marital/maternal status, I think you have picked the wrong examples in Quentin Bryce and Sarah Palin.

The first photos of QB after her appointment was announced were of staged pics with her grandchildren, all cutely dressed in matching clothes. She has always paraded her parental status throughout her career - the fact that she has five children, that she had the first while still a student, that she is a supermum who did kids and a glittering career simultaneously. Now she is using the grandchildren. I doubt if anyone is interested, and I'm sure if she had wanted to keep her grandchildren out of it, the media would have had no interest in them.

Palin has exploited her children too, particularly that poor baby which is lugged out for photo ops like a parcel, and usually seems comatose. She is the one who incessantly refers to herself as a 'hockey mom', and that she has five children.

If she was a bloke he'd be laughed off stage

Bennie, that's a very unkind thing to say about our Governor General! I know what you mean though, what a character. You have to wonder at a choice like that when there are so many other really worthy, less political figures, who could be role models, available.

I suspect that the reason the
focus by the media tends to be on Sarah Palin's
looks (glasses, motherhood, et cetera),rather
than her "qualifications," is due to
her general lack of impressive qualifications in the
political arena. She after-all promotes herself
as a "hockey mum."

And, because our Governor-General is more
than qualified for her job, the media focus
tends to be on her appearance, in order to
"humanise" the lady, for public appeal.

I think that both women are thoroughly enjoying
the media's attention.

I would have to say the short answer is it will happen when women stop seeing themselves like that. Women have to stop blaming men, and have a good look at how they view themselves. During the last Games I don't know how many times I saw the female commentator ask personnel questions to winning athletes bring interviewed. I don't know how many times my wife gets looks and comments from other women, when they find out she doesn't want kids.

PS I think our GG is great and I don't care how many kids she’s had. Also I would dare say that Sarah is not there for her steel trap mind.

Many studies show that women are more concerned with their looks than men are: I bet that Sarah Palin's wardrobe budget, for instance, is several times higher than Joe Biden's. Under those circumstances it's not unreasonable for the media to focus on women's looks because that's something that the women themselves tend to consider important.

On the other hand I would also love to see some of our male power figures discussing their grandchildren, showing off their shoe collections and taking paternity leave: it might help both the individuals concerned and the electorate to realise that they are only human like the rest of us.

I have no problem with reference being made to the fact that these women, or any other female political figures, are mothers or grandmothers. That is an important part of who they are and in my view should not be deliberately omitted, purely in order to match the standards of reporting that might be applied to male political figures.

I do have a problem though with the media obsessing over the appearance of these women. The scrutiny should be applied to their achievements and policy positions not to what they are wearing. I do feel, fairly or unfairly, that both these women invite this superficial focus to some extent, as they both obviously go to some pains over their appearance.

There are female political figures who don't find themselves subjected to the same intense scrutiny over their looks. The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, for example, is a no fuss person whose priority is obviously getting on with the job at hand. She dresses sensibly and looks good, but there's always a sense when you see her interviewed that for her what she has to say is far more important than how she looks. And I think that attitude is reflected in the way in which she is reported on.

I meant the ditz running for VP.

In my experience it tends to be women who make a lot of noise about other womens looks. They tend to put a very high value on apparent beauty, the facade of the beauty myth, to the point of becoming rather fawning about it. "She's sooooo beautifoooool" is commonly heard by women about little girls and new girlfriends and these clothes or that house. It seems to be very important to them.

l think its about the sexual power and manipulative utility of beautiful imagery (women are very big on image) that women tend to foster. They seem extrmely reticent to throw off the shackles of the beauty myth (wont go out without makeup, wont go to the beach without removing body hair). Its hard to let go of the effectiveness of it and its a dissappointing copout to blame those they seek to manipulate. They also use beauty as a way of manipulating each other, establishing hierarchies of conformity and competition and use it as a way of keep each other down (not dissimilar to what men do around money and resources).

As for Palin, where they got the notion that she possesses cliched beauty is beyond me. She wears way too much makeup and there's far too much fakery of hair and grooming for me to even begin to see any real or true beauty she may possess. Then again, she is a politician so its likely she's a bit of a scoundrel and not beautiful on the inside.

*In my experience it tends to be women who make a lot of noise about other womens looks. *

Well exactly! I have yet to see anywhere in the financial press,
comments about what Gail Kelly of Westpac wears. But then that is
mainly read and commented on by men. Most men frankly could not give
a fig, if women are wearing the green or the red dress, not so for
other women. They can be pretty bitchy, when checking out other
women.

Palin is a a bit like Dan Quayle, the butt of endless jokes, as
neither has been considered to be a Rhodes scholar.