I asked men and women the same question for a month, and learned a lot about gender.
· As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, a UN report reveals almost 90% of people today have prejudices against women.
· Double standards surrounding male and female behaviour still persist today.
· This article highlights the real world effects of gender inequality, and some of the voices leading the debates.
Over the past month I have been asking people to name someone in the public eye they consider annoying, and other words they associate with this person. You can try this for yourself. He, she or they can be any level of fame or celebrity, though politicians are not allowed. I was struck by what I discovered.
Virtually all of the named public figures were cis-gendered, native English-speaking and heterosexual. The most frequent responses were Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Meghan Markle, David and Victoria Beckham, Kanye West, and the Kardashian family (individual members, and collectively). One non-binary person was mentioned, the singer Sam Smith.
Both men and women were named, though the people I surveyed responded more often with a female celebrity. This was true of both the men and women I asked. Most interestingly however, I quickly learned that the additional adjectives people associate with these public figures are decisively split along gender lines.
Based on what I heard, there are double standards by which we judge female and male behaviour to. Men are singled out for concrete reasons such as erratic or unmoral behaviour; think West’s controversial antics and Beckham’s leaked emails. However, women’s crimes are much subtler and harder to pinpoint. Annoying female celebrities are described in more generalised terms, most notably fake, disingenuous, vain, and attention-seeking.
Echoing the results of my survey, Taylor Swift addressed this imbalance when accepting the Woman of the Decade award at the 2020 Billboards. She noted that unlike men, famous women are constantly judged “for their bodies, their romantic lives, their fashion”. Swift quizzes the audience, “have you ever heard someone say about a male artist, I really like his songs but I don’t know what it is, there’s just something about him I don’t like?” (In fact, some people did cite Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber when asked, but far less frequently than Swift).
In a 2019 interview the queer actor and activist Jameela Jamil discusses the wide gulf in how famous men and women are perceived and spoken about. She also describes an article which ranked the Kardashians, who Jamil has publicly criticised for using their platform and global influence to perpetuate a “toxic” agenda, by what they physically weighed. As a result, Jamil set up the I Weigh Instagram account as a consciously inclusive platform for people to share their achievements and emotional worth, rather than their weight and waistlines.
Jamil also advises the (predominately female) audience to stop “worrying about being likable”, and to please themselves first. The actor has faced criticism in moments when she has criticised other people’s behaviour, while being slow to acknowledge her various privileges (one of my survey respondents described Jamil as “disingenuous”). Despite some lapses, for which Jamil has publicly and humbly apologised each time, I Weigh has amassed 1 million followers and has inspired others to create spaces online for kinder content created by and for women, such as The Female Lead.
Substantial research is showing how these imbalanced views and unequal treatment of men and women encroach on everyday life, even in 2020. According to a UN report, almost 90% of people today worldwide are prejudiced against women. Broken down, 91% of men hold at least one bias against women relating to politics, education, health or economic opportunities — and so do 86% of women.
We already know that “imposter syndrome” disproportionately affects women, and that they are less likely to apply for more senior roles as a result of it. Although there have been strides in closing the gender pay gap, recent research points to a continuing “confidence gap”. Women are less likely to publicise their achievements or self-promote than their male counterparts. The reasons for this are unproven, but the researchers point to an unspoken “threat of backlash” to women speaking up or appearing boastful (from both men, and other women).
Women are also more likely than men to report experiencing anxiety and depression due to work stresses (66% compared to 58%). The same report points to substantial evidence that women are more at risk of discrimination, workplace harassment and unequal pay.
The consequences of unfair treatment can be devastating. In the months leading up to the death by suicide of TV presenter Caroline Flack, the press attention around the star had become “frenzied”, and increasingly negative.
Exactly one year before she died, Flack spoke at length about “the shockingly different standards applied to men and women”. As a single woman dating in the public eye, she recalled the “shame [and] embarrassment” she was made to feel by the press simply for dating, as they created a “caricature” of her private life.
Various news outlets have sought to reframe the narrative surrounding her death, by deleting unkind articles written previously about Flack, and suggesting motives leading up to her suicide that subtly direct blame away from the press itself. This has included speculation about her self-esteem, and the pernicious idea that Flack was ‘unlucky-in-love’ (a trope often attached to single celebrities, and virtually exclusively to women).
In the weeks following her death, Flack’s family released a statement she had written in her final days, which paints the picture of a vulnerable woman under intense pressure. Flack mentions feelings of “shame and embarrassment” again, and describes the “toxic” media scrutiny that had surrounded her for some time, particularly in light of her impending court case.
As host of the record-breaking Love Island, Flack was also subject to the court of public opinion, which thrives on social media and in online forums, and trickles into workplace and dinnertime conversations. One journalist specifically points out the gap between Flack’s fluctuating media portrayal, and her “joyful, gregarious and utterly likeable” personality.
A 2017 Guardian thinkpiece praised the “new wave of ‘unlikable’ women in film”. The concept of unlikability is incredibly loaded and subjective, particularly for women as Jamil has noted earlier. Yet the article touches on the starkly different standards that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were judged by in the 2016 US election coverage (or, in the case of Clinton, condemned by), and the real-world ramifications of this.
Now, over to you. Think of a celebrity you find annoying, and other adjectives that you associate with this person. Before you answer, please take a moment to consider the following:
Women have to work [harder than men], we have to prove that we deserve this, and we have to top our last achievements. Women … are not allowed to coast. We are held at a higher, sometimes impossible-feeling standard. – Taylor Swift
Awareness of, and then calling out, double standards is crucial to attaining equality in future. This is an ongoing process and everyone has their part to play in it, no matter which gender(s) he, she or they identify with. To quote Jamil, the first steps are to acknowledge and “unlearn so much of our own internalized misogyny, and we have to not shame each other for that”. I couldn’t agree more.
