Sexist headline in the Daily Telegraph - help me craft a letter in response

[MirandaGoshawk]

The story is that the Cresta Run in Switzerland (most dangerous bobsleigh course, five recent deaths) has lifted its ban on women doing the full run - they could previously participate in Ladies' Days and do the bottom part of the run only. The ban was imposed 90 years ago because of fears for safety and that it could lead to breast cancer. The first woman down it is a 41-year old Brit called Carina Evans. Mrs Evans is an army reservist and she has been training for this moment for 20 years. She holds the record for the lower part of the course. She comes from Oxfordshire, has two children, and runs a pet accessory business with her husband. So what's the headline? "Mother makes Cresta Run history in 75 secs". (To add insult to this, the first paragraph says she's done it in 'under two minutes'. That's a helluva lot of seconds difference when every second counts.) Describing someone as a mother in this sort of context makes it sound to me as if she's just popped off her pinny for a minute. So I'm going to write to the letters page, because they'd never say "Father makes Cresta Run history" for whatever reason, unless he had his kid with him, presumably. But the fact that she is female is relevant.

What you've written here is a good explanation of the issue. Why focus on her status as a mother when it's not relevant and they would never refer to a man as a father in this context?

Totally agree with you, being a mother is irrelevant to this story, ask them why in that case this was the headline.
Happens all the time.

Your explanation above is pretty succinct. It’s so frustrating that mainstream media still seem to think it’s completely acceptable to describe women like this.

Thank you all. I like what you said, Assassinated, about focusing on being a mother when it's irrelevant to the story.

Please feel free to write your own letters to them! The address is [email protected] . You have to include your name, address and work and home phone numbers. Quote the article date - it appeared in the edition published Saturday 26 January.

Abso-fucking-lutely.

Fuckers.

Little head pat for the little lady.

Patronising gits.

I'm in a FB group that makes fun of sexism in the newspapers and it's a running joke that women don't actually have names, we are only defined by our relationships to men or children. Wife, Girlfriend, Mother, Daughter - these are all the names we need.

I think the media in my country is particularly bad. You'll often see stuff like "John and his girlfriend blah blah", "David's daughter blah blah". I don't think the British media do this quite as much but referring to her as Mother rather than her name definitely gives the impression that she's not really a full person in her own right, seeing as her reproductive success, as you point out, is completely irrelevant to the story.

But peeps, I'm proud I'm a mum and have done it. The article celebrates that in its very headline. It's entirely relevant that I'm a mum by the fact that the ban on women riding the Cresta has just been lifted. In addition, Mums and full time working mums are very very busy people, the article is right to highlight this and celebrate it. Dads have always been able to do this sport you see, which is why doing it as a mum is pretty cool.

Please don't get feisty about this for my sake, I see it as a positive celebration of mumship.

Please be kind in your quest for equality, men have challenges too. We all do. I hope that I've not offended, it's just that I've never experienced a glass ceiling or any problems being a woman as I've never expected any. Kick on I say, carpe dieum, male or female!

It’s very typical of the Telegraph. Somewhere in the body of story, I’m guessing there’ll be a mention of the value of her home.

"it's just that I've never experienced a glass ceiling or any problems being a woman as I've never expected any. "

Apart from not being allowed to do the Cresta run until now. And all the other things that women are or have been barred from. It's a nonsense to suggest that glass ceilings and problems only occur because women are expecting them.

Congratulations to you!

It's not really just about you, though. The media often describes women as Mother for no good reason and this is damaging to all women. It's not the biggest issue facing women but it is sexist.

Plus you've never experienced restrictions as a woman, but this is literally about the removal of restrictions on women? So yeah, great that they fixed that, but yes you have experienced restrictions based on your sex. For this reason it's relevant that you're a woman. It's absolutely not relevant that you're a mother, and this has nothing to do with how you feel about motherhood.

And yeah women don't experience sexism because we have an attitude problem..

Congrats to you but your acccomplishment here has zero to do with the fact you are a mother. You are a mother. But you also have a name. And instead in an accomplishment you achieved as an individual you are reduced to a role you play in relation to others. The ban was lifted on women riding, not mothers riding it. All mothers are women, but not all women are mothers. Women can be “very very busy” people without being mothers too. It should be a celebration of lifting a ban restricting women, not celebrating “mumship”.

Women are constantly referred to in media as mothers, daughters, wives. Women who are childless or childfree are still referred to as someone else’s daughter because an adult human female who has not had children still can’t be their own person.

And of course you experiences restrictions as a woman: one of them was just lifted.

just that I've never experienced a glass ceiling or any problems being a woman as I've never expected any.

This is actually incredibly offensive and sexist. So you think women who are sexually assaulted and harassed at work, or teenage girls who lose races - and scholarships - to teenage boys identifying as girls, or women who are denied a promotion because a male who may have less experience then them but have “a wife and kids to support at home”, or women who get paid less for the same work, all experience these problems as they “expected them”?

It’s very typical of the Telegraph. Somewhere in the body of story, I’m guessing there’ll be a mention of the value of her home.

Luna The home value thing occurred to me too! Surprisingly this was missed out on this occasion, I suspect because there wasn't space to include all the details (as there wasn't space to put 'now discredited' after the thing about toboganning once being thought to induce breast cancer , which they should have done.) I was very tempted to mention the value of my own home in my letter!