Sexism at the New York Times

On Sept. 6, the New York Times published an article on the front page of the a section about Diane Sawyer's recent promotion to solo anchor on the ABC evening news.

The first three sentences of this article are:
"ONE female network TV anchor is a breakthrough. Two become a catfight. That equation is almost inevitable no matter who the women are who make it to the top of television news."

Really?!? Any two successful women = catfight?? In this case the women are Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric, who was the first woman to become a solo anchor on the evening news in 2006 at CBS. The first words used to describe Ms. Sawyer following this accusation are:
"...she is a gorgeous, glamorous television personality who got the top job by waiting around."



Really?!?!? Waiting around? That's how she got to be a solo anchor on the evening news? Couldn't possibly be a lifetime of devotion to her career, shrewd decision making, and hard work. In addition to "gorgeous" and "glamorous," the ONLY OTHER ADJECTIVES in this article used to describe Ms. Sawyer are:

"golden allure"
"teen beauty queen"
"fetching"
"almost absurdly good looking " (That "almost" adds insult to injury.)
"geisha-like"
"velvety"
"regal demeanor"

And then there's this almost-redeeming-but-oh wait no!-still-etirely-demeaning sentence:
"Ms. Sawyer, who is as relentless and driven as any of her peers, makes an art of coy deflection."

AND:
"Ms. Sawyer is not likely to have difficulty adopting a more neutral, impassive persona for the new job."

This is expected of a woman taking a new job??@#%?

Ms. Couric is even further undermined with even more mysogenist statements. Her acceptance of that deserved promotion from NBC morning show personality to CBS solo evening anchor is belittled as: "raiding enemy territory as CBS did when it wooed Ms. Couric away from NBC."

With this wording, Ms. Couric becomes the subjective recipient of CBS' 'wooing,' instead of the pro-active director of her career.

Ms. Couric is described ONLY as:

"a morning-show natural"
"peppy"
and as having a "casual style"

The article then laments: "Women anchors may turn out to be what women doctors once were in the Soviet Union, a majority without status or financial advantage."

This is EVEN MORE LIKELY if you talk about Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer like they are dolls!!! If these two women cannot get respect from the media, what woman can???

Apparently, not the writer of this article, who happens to be a woman!! A female journalist wrote this! Her name is Alessandra Stanley and you can e-mail her here.

You can write letters to the editor at letters@nytimes.com. Their website instructs you to "be sure to include your name, address and telephone number. Writers whose letters have been selected for publication will be notified within a week to ten days."

And the article is, unfortunately, here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/weekinreview/06stanley.html?scp=5&sq=katie%20couric%20diane%20sawyer&st=cse