Who Wears the Pants in This Media Outlet?

We watch a lot of FoxNews here at the Huffington Post.

Not because some of us want to, but because we need to in order to do our jobs. Thus, all day long, our remotes switch back and forth between the mainstream news networks -- CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. Oh, FoxNews. It's mostly inoffensive as a mute background visual. But out of the corner of my eye, I can still see the sorority of always giggling, liberally lip-glossed, buxom TV anchor-esses. Doubtlessly hired for their Columbia Journalism School degrees and hardnosed critical analysis, right?

As a (prickly feminist) young woman in journalism who wants to be taken seriously for my tenacity and reportage, that's frustrating to watch. To say the least.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse...

If you haven't watched this video, you simply must: On Sunday's Fox & Friends, a male anchor hands the broadcast over to a female anchor, cracks a joke about pants suits (gee, who do we think they were talking about?) and asks her, "Have you ever worn a pantsuit? Are you a pantsuit woman?"

A strange thing to ask a colleague, but innocuous enough.

But then Ainsley Earhardt -- the anchor-ess -- tucks her hair behind her ears and replies, "I have! But, see, here at Fox we like to be feminine, so we don't wear the pants." Off in the distance, we hear a wolf whistle.

And then Earhardt coyly continues, "Would you like us to wear pants, Brian?" "No, no!" Brian exclaims. (She does have great legs, I admit.) "It's very hard to please Brian," a second female anchor jokes. And then Brian, who sounds like a great guy, announces, "If I were to run for office, I would run on a pro-skirt platform. I am firmly behind the skirts." Another male anchor adds, "You're firmly behind the skirts? Is that what you just said?"

At this point, the second female anchor interjects, a bit sternly, "I think you should stop now."

Uhhhh...yeah.

What's interesting here is that Earhardt said not "we don't wear pants," but "we don't wear the pants." It would have made sense for Earhardt to say "we are feminine, (ergo) we don't wear pants," which of course would not have been actually true but would have been stereotypically true insofar as the Western construct of feminine appearance. But Earhardt says, "here at Fox we like to be feminine, so we don't wear the pants." As we all know, the pants is what the person in charge wears.

Is her implication that being feminine, being a female, means not wearing "the pants"? As a woman who wears skirts and dresses all the time -- and would support Brian's pro-skirt platform on fashion merits alone -- that's a really creepy characterization of femininity right there -- we like to be feminine so we don't wear the pants.

The feminist and conspiracy theorist in me hopes, though, that there's some sarcastic social commentary here. Could Earhardt possibly be making a dig at her FoxNews bosses and their expectations of their female anchors? How hard is it for you to imagine a FoxNews-y conversation either explicitly or implicitly guiding the female journalists ("journalists"?) to wear short skirts, cleavage-bearing tops and copious makeup? Think of that Katherine Heigl and Kirsten Wiig weight-loss scene in Knocked Up.

This is quite enough time that I have wasted dissecting an off-the-cuff convo between FoxNews employees on sartorial matters. I'll go back to figuring out, pasty-white-from-sitting-behind-the-glow-of-a-computer-screen and working-for-feminist-progressives associate blog editor that I am, if leggings, paired with boots and a shirt, count as "pants." And what that, exactly, means for my career in journalism.

Comments

[wilhelmR]

When I want to have a good laugh I don't turn to Jon Stewart (he's not funny, Bill Maher is.) I turn to the "three stooges" at Fox in the morning. They two male are so stupid and believe they're smart, even the rest of the Media takes them seriously, that they are funny. When Didi or whatever is her name was with these two dumb men they were all even funnier because, at times, Didi forgot her script and came up with her smartness and the other two (dumb men) said: "uh, uh, uh...." She even said that in her honeymoon she went to Morocco and "the tea was aphrodisiac" that she brought some to the USA. The other two asked her for some of "her tea." Dumb asses, didn't they all know than maybe "the tea" was hashish!

[FCN]

Once again a brilliant post and analyst by Jess Wakeman!!! Jess not only wears her political beliefs on her sleeve but tells it like it is. This post is dead on and shows us once again the glass ceiling is alive and well and that sadly some women are still willing to play the boys club game.

[TheDude1369]

PART of the "problem" addressed in your post is, in fact, the motivation behind the post.

we all have problems to contend with in society. no one is "an island" in this world.

you cannot deride "the women of Fox" for being or viewing a different reality. while i admire your view, i cannot in good conscience place anything other than a momentary, "hmmm". lots of things to write about and a tired-assed old feminista argument is not a good use of your time. think about it. google it. the SAME argument circa 1972. wow.

[Neff]

Nicely done. Especially interesting that you raise the possibility of some sarcasm in there. I'm reminded of two things:
(1) Some of my sassier southern female relatives. They wouldn't call themselves feminists, and many would avoid pantsuits, but they do in fact wear THE pants.
(2) The Simpson's episode on Homerpalooza, where one random teen makes some comment on a band, and the other one, stumped, asks him if he meant that sarcastically or not. The first one gets this dumbfounded look on his face and says "I don't even know anymore."
If they were joking, and just letting the men be idiots, how much of their audience got that, I wonder?

[thecyberprof]

It's inevitable that Hillary's campaign will set off a flurry of retro-Heff-with-pipe-clenched-in-teeth-sexism, as president appears to be the final stronghold of unassailable masculinity. The last discussion I recall about women wearing pants on TV involved Mary Tyler Moore appearing in Capri pants on The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1963 (?). CBS allowed her to wear pants in one scene of each program, not because they were concerned about her appearing masculine, but rather because of her "hotness" to use a John Stewart word. Those Fox guys are idiots.

[Guitarsandmore]

Let's just see how she looks in some Bib Overalls (without a shirt of course) which is much more of a blue collar look anyway and the best choice for the workingmans democrat.


http://www.carhartt.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=10051&catalogId=10101&langId=-1&categoryId=10907

[Ajita]

I completely agree with the analysis. I not only object to the implication that feminine women cannot wear pants, I reserve my own right to wear a skirt. The majority of men's traditional dress throughout Asia and Africa and parts of Europe and Micronesia includes beautiful skirts. And I've known some ladies who could look sexier that ever in a pantsuit.
http://menintime.de/05_start_en.php3

[Guitarsandmore]

The popularity of recent on line pictures of Britney and Lindsey seem to bare out the assumption that women get more attention when they take their pants off!

[ThreeCentsWorth]

Fun post, but I'm bummed you made me watch clips of Fox. Oh, well. Guess we should all watch it before it fades away....

[Alony]

Yes, Jess! This is fabulous. Don't listen to people who call you a nazi for not accepting gender bigotry, they are idiots, you are not.

[pedrothemigrant]

This article is the most inane paranoid-schizophrenic-typical-femi-nazi-victimology diatribe ever to appear on Huffpo. I'm sure you never ever wear skirts at your job or your household because you don't want to be mistaken for a woman (though you're more than likely single unless you've found a cardigan-wearing girly man to submit), so what the hell is wrong with a dress code at a private place of employment? You just can't work at Fox that's all. Thank God. I like my Kelly, Friel, Faulkner, Banderas, Skinner, Dhue, Hill, Davis, Green in SKIRTS! Shocking the lengths a mind green with envy of the success of Fox will go to in order to smear the network with not a minute shred of anything substantive or even logically constructed but conjecture on the intent of a definite article... LOVE HUFFPO!

[Average]

The women on Fox news are just plain BETTER than the men or women on other networks. They also happen to look better. SOME WOMEN hate ALL WOMEN who look better and are more successful.

[Ajita]

I hate all the women who work at Fox. Almost as much as I hate all the men who work there (thats really hard to do, considering some of the slimeballs that pass for men over there). They're better all right. Better at screwing this country and the rest of us who aren't country club material.
A woman suggests that since Fox is conservative and she is "feminine", she must let the men wear "the pants". How can you not get the obvious implication that women are to subjugate to men? That was a horrible statement.
What's really funny about your last statement when you implied that the blog article was inspired by jealous hate, is that the author actually complimented the anchor's legs.

[TheCaddieCapitalist]

The comments by "perdothemigrant" and "average" are intellectually lazy.

For the record, Jess has a profound intellect which is appealing to men of less small views.

Had you read the article, you would have understood that she wasn't taking issue with the dress code, she was taking issue with men not taking women serious. Your response confirms her point.

Now what? Do you change your perspective or carry on with your nonsense?

[apm]

Interesting post, Jess, but I reacted to the video a little differently.

The comments had an inappropriate tone and appeared to be heading in a still more inappropriate direction. They did, that is, until the second anchor politely, but firmly ended the conversation. In doing so, she not only signaled her own disapproval, but saved her fellow anchors and FoxNews itself from a potentially embarassing situation. In short, she acted like a professional.

Of course sexism still leaks into the public discourse on a daily basis and it's no secret that FoxNews is hardly a bastion of progressive feminism. But just as the male anchors' behavior could be a bit in a training video for what not to say on live TV, so too the female anchor's response is a fine example of how such situations should be handled with aplomb. Kudos to her; that's the example women need to see in a world where change comes slowly.

[enocko]

Now you're giving her credit for being a reasonable person doing her job... any anchor should have been able to make that judgment. Way to have low expectations.

Anyway, moving on... first let me say, I DON'T think the media's biased against Hillary, and Russert and Williams have asked Obama some awfully journalistically unethical questions.

I looked up pantsuit in wikipedia, and they say it consists of a jacket and pants. I know there're other kinds of women's suits, but basically, a pantsuit, they could just call it a suit. It's the "pants" part that makes it sound ridiculous, and I don't see why people even talk about it.

I think it's been a fully legitimate and not unbecoming raiment for women for a long time now.

Besides, Jan Levinson-Gould wears them.

[Rachel Sklar - Huffpost Blogger]

Smart post, Jess. I'm wearing pants right now!