It has come to no surprise that the recent notorious front cover article of the’ Daily Mail’ has sparked controversy in the journalist and feministic world, resulting in a lot of critique from public speaking feminists nationally.
The front cover depicts a shot of the infamous two female political leaders; Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland and Theresa May, the British Prime Minister sitting together to discuss the important matter of Sturgeon’s intention to enforce a 2nd Scottish referendum, of which quite ordinarily the women were seen to be wearing appropriate length skirt. Yet, the Daily Mail took this as an opportunity to disregard the political affairs and emphasise the display of the women’s legs, hence the seen to be patronising headline of “Never Mind Brexit, Who Won Legs-It?”
The narrow focus on a pair of legs rather than the political debate of the Scottish referendum caused immediate critique on social media, with remarks referencing the Daily Mail emulating the 1950’s sexist journalist typicality, which we see far less of today, apart from when it occasionally occurs and causes uproar in the modern world. Upon hearing about the front cover myself; I interviewed a female friend on what their opinion was on the tabloid tactic and whether they see this as an objectifying move against working women or just a meaningless move by journalists to capture the reader’s attention. Jaye Rana, 17, Chalfont’s Community College, stated that she didn’t see the front cover as something particularly objectifying towards women but something “irrelevant” as people “read newspapers for news..if we wished to read topics about personal appearances then we would read magazines, such as ‘OK!’” and that the general focus on the skirts creates a “bigger deal than needed, to draw perhaps a wider male audience?”. Which if true, arguably the intention was sexist to an extent to appeal to the male masses for having ‘legs out’, which diminishes the gravitas of the actual political meeting.
Overall, the Daily Mirror resulted in what appears a desperate plea to maintain reader’s attention which could unfortunately only be resulted through putting a magnifying glass on women’s pair of legs.
Sophia Lorraine Zenonos The Chalfont’s Community College
