Difference in news interviews for women

[BlingLoving]

I have been browsing the FT's website and came across a regular column called "20 questions". On the plus side, they seem to regularly find women to include. On the downside, the women's interviews always include questions on where they shop for their clothes, being a woman etc.

Does anyone else find this offensive? I wish one of these women would respond with "I'll answer that question when you ask it of the next man you interview".

Having said that, I see a lot of these women mention their children themselves: "I like to be able to take the children to school" which I admit I find frustrating - I would prefer they don't mention their children until men start to do the same. It feels like they're subtly trying to say, "don't worry, I'm a powerful woman but I still spend time with my children".

The articles also tend to reference the person in the context of being a woman eg "One of the first women to graduate from the Ecole Polytechnique, Dominique Senequier, is also one of the few women to have..." etc but I can sort of understand that.

Yeah, these women have it tough because they will get criticised by the media if they don't talk about their kids whereas men don't have the same problem so it would be difficult for them NOT to talk about their kids because the media LOVE a good mud slinging headline and the poor woman would just suffer for it. It would be way more interesting if the interviewer asked the men how they dealt with having a job and looking after their kids/having a decent relationship with them etc. Now that would be an interview i'd like to read.

If someone was interviewing me about my career (god they'd be bored but still) I think I would be fairly likely to mention my children/family as I've worked hard to get a balance going and I think its important that its seen as 'normal/expected' to balance career and children. Rather than being a successful woman at work means pretending we don't have children. I agree that men should be expected to balance in the same way and should be asked about it too.

Oh yes and you are so right about the clothes shopping questions. Yawn.

One of the things I wrote in the "I will hang up my feminist hat when" thread, was when men are asked how it feels, as a man, to be prime minister or head of a NASA division.

other questions that are apparently only valid for those with vaginas:

• how do you manage to balance work and family life?
• how do you manage to keep looking so good with all the work you do?
• do you have a healthy diet even with all the time you spend running the country/smashing capitalism/lion-taming?

Plus gross-out comments on how beautiful someone is, and their lovely clothes - she's the Wimbledon champion/head of MI5/director of an Oscar-winning film. Why the blooody blazes would I be more interested in column inches about her footwear or skincare regime than talking about her life?

I would like to see the work/life balance questions (children, family, eating healthily, exercise, relaxation and hobbies) asked equally of men and women (I do find it interesting to see how Top People go about finding balance, if they do) and the appearance questions (where do you buy your clothes, etc.) asked of neither.

on a slight tangent, did anyone hear Kathy Burke standing up for her right to live single on Desert Island Discs? I thought Kirsty thing was going to march her to the altar. Totally odd to harangue someone for remaining unmarried. I cannot imagine this being the case with an unmarried male comedian/actor/writer. Kevin Spacey for instance.

Yes. I would also like people to start asking absent fathers whether/when/how often they see their children, as they would with mothers who had left. See Julie Burchill for instance, that horrible man Tony Parsons was practically beatified for raising his own offspring.

I saw an advert for a film recently, can't remember what it was called but it was about a man who's wife left him or died and he had to bring up his own children. Looked like a totally pants film.

I would like to see men asked those questions too, but TBH I like to see it as a bit of a feminist standpoint when a lot of women do mention their children - I like to hear that a serious, high flying woman has three kids and re-jigged her working week to make school run three times a week. I think that the more we see senior women talking about it, the more it normalises it.

So I think it's business MEN who need to be interviewed as whole people, not just bodies in suits, rather than woman shutting up about it.

All the health and beauty and fashion questions though, yawn, yawn, yawn. I'll put up with it if women and men are both asked, but for god's sake, I don't care where he buys his cuff links or where she gets her hair blowdried.

Yeah agree men should be asked about their families/personal lives.

If you had a woman behaving as some high-profile men behave they would be hunted down with pitchforks.

do you know what else? when it comes to talking about an issue that only/mainly affects women, I would really like it if news presenters stopped doing their "and finally" voices. It's about women, not spaniels who can play the piano, take it seriously FFS. It's the combination of mild interest "let's see what those peculiar near-humaoids are up to now" and scepticism "ooh but they're probably telling some lie about the pay gap/sexual harrassment again".

Perhaps they do ask the questions of the men but the response doesn't warrant publication.

Personally I am interested in how woman juggle their family and career, but then I confess to also being quite interested in what woman are wearing....

I certainly wouldn't advocate a position where woman felt they ought not mention that they have a family and I see nothing wrong with the "I am a powerful woman and I spend time with my children" approach. I think that normalises woman in industry.

Having said that I'd be interested to hear why you think woman shouldn't mention their children.

agree with Ribena.
ask them all about their families and no-one at all about fashion and beauty. sorted.

Thing is that lots of these powerful type men seem to have loads of kids (OK my sample is the men on dragons den ) and they are dying to show off about them. if the men were asked these questions I'm sure they'd be more than happy to answer them...

LOL @ Dragons Den crowd. So true.
Did you see that I-Teddy one where Duncan Bannatyne got all self-righteous and said he wasn't going to invest because it's the father's job to read the bedtime stories?

ISNT I don't read the FT but I always read the interview in the back of the money section of the Sunday Times (hardly more representative than your Dragons Den - sorry! )but my general impression is that there are a lot of men being asked about their families but actually many more talking about them unprompted.

Sure there will be some that don't but I don't read to much into it I always assume that either they don't have children, or that they wont talk about them due to privacy.

TBH I find it a bit strange of a woman who I know to have children never talks about them.

Yes he was utterly enraged, I thought he was going to dropkick iteddy across the room

if a woman I know....

I completely agree with all that's been said, but in defence of Kirsty Young on Desert Island Disks she is pretty tough on anyone who is single/childless! She definately asked David Mitchell why he didn't have a girlfriend & Frank Skinner why he didn't have any children & didn't they both regret it & feel there was something missing from their lives. But in general women are asked some pretty moronic things ininterviews. That whole work/life balance thing is particularly insidious I think.

I missed david mitchell - I heard frank skinner though and she did ask about the kids thing.

It was the "well you're frankly selfish, you'd make someone a perfectly serviceable wife and you are withholding yourself" tone. I was yelling "we're not queueing up for the fucking ark you know!" at the radio.