Wellington’s newspaper, the Dominion Post, sucks. Really, it sucks a whole damn lot. It was around before I left but it was new; it is the amalgamation of two previous papers, The Dominion and The Evening Post. The Dom was hardheaded, conservative and business-oriented; the Post was as left-leaning as papers got in NZ. Both (like every damn newspaper in NZ) owned by Rupert Murdoch.
\nThe merger was resisted but went ahead anyway, and the new paper is downright nasty. It kept the Dominion’s ethos, ripping from the Evening Post only its slight tabloidy tendencies and occasional propensity for shallowness (both magnified for the new paper). The new paper really is the worst of both worlds.
\nAdditionally, robbed of the dynamic that you get from two papers, the whole feel of newspaper media coverage is flattened and preprocessed. I don’t like it. Few people do, as far as I can tell.
\nBut I was very unpleasantly surprised to find a big section every Thursday entitled “Woman: A Feast of Fashion & Food”. There’s a Woman section in the newspaper. Hell. I’m sure there was a lot of consternation at the time this was launched, but I wasn’t there then, and I’m here now, and can I say the concept of a Woman section is ridiculous and horrific in equal measure?
\nI’ve fished out the last two Woman sections. Here’s what they comprise:
\nArticles:<\/b>
\n(Feb 2)
\nMain feature:<\/i> Ironing (who is doing it?)
\nOther features:<\/i> I’m addicted to buying clothes on eBay; Prenuptial agreements; Scientific research on assessing beauty
\n(Feb 9)
\nMain feature:<\/i> Glossy womens magazines (how have they changed?)
\nOther features:<\/i> single people are excluded from stuff, valentine’s Day gift ideas
\nRegulars:<\/b> (both weeks)
\nIntimacy<\/i> (Neil Rosenthal’s soul-murdering relationship advice column)
\nIn Style<\/i> (consumer porn, i.e. stuff you can’t afford)
\nFashion Talk<\/i> (gossip from the industry)
\nRestaurant reviews, Recipes, Why I Love<\/i> (people talk about stuff they like, ceramics and making furniture these weeks)
\nIt just beggars belief that this is a part of the big newspaper of Wellington, the liberal capital of New Zealand. It reinforces every nasty stereotype of a woman’s role, and its existence affects the journalistic culture, demanding ‘woman’ stories which match and support these stereotypes, perpetuating as well as housing the sexist mythology. Yuck.
\nOf course, there is no ‘Man’ section of the paper, because that section is clearly ‘Business’ plus ‘Sport’.
\nOh, it’s awful. Awful awful awful. Welly people, what’s the history of resistance to this? Maybe another batch of letters to the editor would be worthwhile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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