We decided to elaborate our project for the International Day to End Violence against Women, focusing not on physical violence but on the psychological one, which usually seems to be less relevant. A perfect example of this thought is enclosed in the topic of body shaming, key point of our intervention.
Criticisms, judgments lead women to be insecure, who are judge for their hair, their clothes, their skin colour, their body and their face. We live in a world when it is more important how you appear than how you really are. People don't care if you're a journalist, they don't care if you have years of experience, people care about judging you for your looks. This is the reason why we have decided to give Giovanna Botteri and Mábel Lara as examples.
The first one is one of the main special correspondents in Rai (famous Italian TV channel), thanks to its services from countries such as Bosnia, Algeria, South Africa, Iran, Albania, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. With flowing grey hair, minimal make-up, and strong features, Giovanna Botteri has been a victim of body shaming by the authors of “Striscia la Notizia” and thanks to the voice of Michelle Hunziker. They joked about Giovanna's look, that someone consider to be “sloppy”, and there were talk of her styling, her careless appearance, messy hair and blouse. They said she always wears a black V-neck sweater, the same with which the journalist appears in almost every public appearance.
Mabel Lara, on the other hand, is a Colombian journalist, radio host and presenter. She is a symbol of struggle, change and personality in her country. Mábel has also shown her support to the Afro-Colombian group with publicity and television campaigns.
Since 2018 Mabel decided not to straighten her curly hair, this being an aesthetic decision that aligns with the struggle of the black community to make its natural beauty visible.
In conlcusion, when we ask ourselves “Why female journalists are judged for their aspect and not for their job performance?”, of course we don't have the answer, but we believe women should be free to be themselves, to wear what they want, to be proud of their aspect, their hair, skin color, their body and their roots.
Beauty and appearance seem to be needful in the media, but they really are not. I find this topic really interesting, in fact also our group has delt with it. It looks like a female journalist has to be professional and well prepared but at the same time people expect her to be pretty, even if beauty has nothing to do with competence.
I remember the episode of Giovanna Botteri and how it fortunately shocked most of the audience, because it looked like all she was and all her work had been reduced to a black sweater.
The question concerned is very interesting and topical. In my opinion, we must not discriminate for how we appear, but evaluate the important work that journalists do, in various contexts and parts of the world as sent. It is thanks to them that we can know what is happening on the other side of the world. Why do we always have to evaluate the appearance?
I find your considerations very important as we've sadly come to a point where appearance is what's valued the most. In a century where we've access to endless possibilities, information, stimuli, etc we're still focused on the less relevant part and this is especially true for women. We made a lot of progress in the sense that in many countries women are now able to go to work but if doing so only means standing there and looking pretty, what does that make us? Empty boxes waiting to be filled by someone else's knowledge? I stand by both these amazing women: their worth will never be linked to their appearance and it is about time people realize that. As for…
I find this project really interesting. It is sad how much people still judge women for their looks. The world of journalism is scary because, as you stated, most of the time women are not judged by their professional skills but are judged by how the appear to the public. This discrimination makes it harder for a woman to show all her potential in order to obtain higher positions in the industry - and as we all know the presence of male journalists is higher in number. I wonder why a woman journalist must always have a perfect makeup with a perfect hairstyle and with specific kind of clothes, meanwhile men do not need all this preparation. If we reflect…
I really appreciated you considering the physical appearance of women journalists and how it impacts their work-life, mostly how it shouldn't impact it. Most of the time, when people talk about someone do not really think their words leave scars on the people who are referred to. Also, the topic is strictly correlated to the one my group talked about (Rula Jebreal), where our testimonial was harassed by two men regarding her look, her being "tanned".
Moreover, this makes me reflect upon a case that I watched on YouTube. It does not concern a women journalist, but I believe it is a good point. Asian YouTubers, who have "common white hands", were suggested to not show their faces because that…