Gender Identity, Columnists, Made-Up News, and Pink Nail Polish, Oh My!

While researching my media bias project, I came across an article discussing the "controversy" over a recent J Crew ad campaign that featured artistic director Jenna Lyons playing with her 5-year-old son who was -- gasp!-- wearing pink nail polish on his toes. I laughed at the article, with its made-up controversy and just ridiculousness--and assumed that it would go no farther than that. Apparently the next day Fox news columnist Dr. Keith Ablow posted this column about the horrific pink nail polish incident, in which he compares Jenna painting her son's toenails pink (at his request, while playing dressup) to children undergoing sex change surgeries and black people dying their skin white. He writes, "These folks are hostile to the gender distinctions that are actually part of the magnificient synergy that creates and sustains the human race. They respect their own creative notions a lot more than any creative Force in the universe." Ok, one guy writes an inflammatory column with his personal opinion - fine. But it ends here, right? Or not. LA Times. New York Magazine. CBS News. Chicago Tribune. The Daily Show. All using words like "outrage" "controversy" "sparks debate" "panic" - all designed to make you think something outrageous was going on (Jon Stewart pointed out that one of the headlines was "See what J Crew director Jenna Lyons has done to her son" - which sounds A LOT worse than pink nail polish!) All of this from a few swipes of pink paint on a little boy's toes. To be fair, many of these news outlets were criticizing Ablow and the other people quoted in the original Fox report for making such a big deal out of it - but it was all done carefully to provoke maximum scandal attention and make it seem like a much bigger deal than the non-issue is really is. Before you know it, a week has gone by, the little boy has long since gone back to playing with his toy trucks and throwing things at his brother and the news cycle is still spinning itself into a frenzy over his precious gender identity.

"It's What I Do"

I recently came across this essay by NY Times photographer Lynsey Addario, who was recently captured by Libyan forces (she was in that video I posted last week.) In this essay, she talks about the controversy over sending female correspondents to war zones, especially in the Middle East. Just read it.

Addario calls the world of conflict correspondence a "boys club", seh theorizes that this may because women have a hard time giving up completely on having a personal life. And she emphasizes that the vast majority of her experience in the Muslim world has been positive, with people being kind and hospitable to her wherever she goes.

But she was captured by Libyan forces last week, and was beaten and groped by the soldiers. Addario asks, "But why is that more horrible than what happened to Tyler or Steve or Anthony--being smashed on the back of the head with a rifle butt? Why isn't anyone saying men shouldn't cover war? Women and men should do what they believe they need to do."

Do you agree with her that a female photographer/reporter brings something unique to the story, with her access to Muslim homes and the private spaces of women? Do you think it doesn't matter--that it's sexist to prevent women from doing the same jobs as men no matter what?

Do you think horrific incidents like what happened to Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News who was beaten and sexually assaulted while covering the Tahrir Square revolution two months ago, change our view on putting female reporters into areas where they may not be treated with respect? Should the reporters themselves be the ones to make that choice? Whose responsibility is it to make sure the reporter is safe--and what do they do in a situation where one reporter will be more safe than another?