Once again women are proving to be their own worst enemies.
With Chris Bath likely to be named the first solo female primetime newsreader on commercial TV in Australia’s biggest market, the sisters have their knives out.
According to media writer Amanda Meade, female viewers find Bath’s hair, make-up and wardrobe “too distracting”.
In a jocular aside, Channel Seven’s Sydney news director Chris Willis said women viewers were always the harshest critics. This story could be interpreted in two ways.
It’s either been leaked by executives, as an excuse to rob Bath of the role she was promised when Ian Ross said he’d retire at the end of this year. (Mark Ferguson, an excellent newsreader who’s popular with both men and women, is waiting anxiously in the wings).
Or Willis is merely confirming what we’ve long suspected – that women can’t wait to claw each other’s eyes out.
Since 1990, when Jennifer Keyte became this country’s first solo female primetime anchor, we’ve been waiting to see who’d be entrusted with Sydney – the biggest and, undoubtedly, toughest market.
It’s not an issue at the ABC where Juanita Phillips has read the 7pm bulletin for six years producing consistently strong ratings. Despite Phillips’ success, Seven news boos Peter Meakin believes such an appointment, on commercial television, is risky.
“There’s a school of thought that there is a risk putting a woman on her own, largely because of female viewers not accepting female readers as authority figures,” he told The Australian newspaper.
While Chris Bath is now considered the heir apparent to the popular Ian Ross, nine years ago she was sidelined after the birth of her son Darcy. Ironically, she had to get her gear off – famously in the news desk strip-tease on Dancing with the Stars – for Seven execs to take her seriously.
Suddenly they realised she was a great newsreader after all. There’s a commonly-held belief that Australia is behind the times, but Bath’s battle cry echoes throughout the world.
It was only three years ago that Katie Couric became the first solo female anchor in the United States (on CBS). Diana Sawyer is about to follow suit on the ABC’s World News Tonight.
Debate rages across the border in Canada, where women are still relegated to weekend slots. Viewer comments reveal that female anchors, worldwide, are subjected to much more scrutiny about their appearance and personal lives than their male counterparts.
In Australia, Sky News presenter Jacinta Tynan feels she is the target of a hate campaign by viewers, obsessing about the way she looks. “They write in saying they’re sick of seeing my face so botoxed, or that there’s too much collagen in my lips. I’m pregnant, for God’s sake, as if I’d be putting anything like that into my body!” she said.
So why do we do this to each other?
Sex Therapist Shere Hite addresses this thorny question in her report on Women Loving Women. From warring sisters, to mothers jealous of their daughters’ beauty, Hite paints a complex and disturbing picture of women judging each other on looks, age and sex appeal.
“When we walk into a room, we are relieved when another woman is not much more attractive than we are,” Hite writes.
“A woman can be put in a tough position: she wants to dress up, she likes the positive attention she gets from looking good, but on the other hand she may risk alienating other women. What to do? There is no right answer.”
This is the dilemma faced by Bath, whose flouncy tops and elaborate hair-dos might be alienating her fan base. In a perfect world, she would be judged by her performance alone.
But, in the words of Captain Blackadder, “The world isn’t fair, Baldrick”. At Sky News and the ABC, women handle breaking news and live interviews without a man to hold their hands.
Sadly, equality could be a long time coming in the land of the dinosaurs.
Several months ago Chris Bath told radio 2UE: “When Roscoe retires, I will be doing Monday to Friday and Fergo will be doing weekends. That’s the plan”.
But she needs bouquets, not brickbats, from the women of Australia to make that plan a reality.
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