Calling Journalist “Beauty” Is Not a Compliment

After presenting the “Tsarukyan alliance” proportional list in the upcoming National Assembly elections, Prosperous Armenia Party leader and MP Gagik Tsarukyan at a press briefing several times addressed female journalists who asked him questions with the words “dear beauty.”

The MP, using the informal “you” when addressing journalists and lavishing them with compliments, perhaps was trying to create a friendly atmosphere, but the result was that he reinforced the sexist attitude towards women that exists in Armenia and which female journalists fall victim to.

The journalists asking Tsarukyan questions are indeed beautiful, and they surely receive compliments on their external appearance from family members, friends, and partners. But a politician commenting on a journalist’s appearance, particularly in working relationships, is unacceptable. 

Behavior that may be viewed acceptable in one context may be completely inappropriate in another context. Calling a journalist a “beauty” imparts an undesirable tone to the professional relationships that exist between journalists and politicians.

The journalist who is doing her job and asking a politician a question expects a courteous response — and not compliments or comments on her beauty. Because the journalist is not there because of her beauty. After all, she’s not participating in a beauty pageant but in a press conference, and it’s not her appearance that got her into that room or her workplace, but the editorial assignment.

 

By commenting on a journalist’s appearance, a politician is not making a compliment. He is willingly or unwillingly belittling the journalist’s professional skills, emphasizing that the journalist should be pleased by her appearance more than by her work.  

By imparting a completely esthetic value to the journalist, the politician is saying that he doesn’t take her seriously. In this way he tries to use beautiful words as a manipulative tool to demonstrate intimate relations that don’t actually exist or to create a positive predisposition. 

According to the simplest etiquette, if you’re not very intimate with someone, crossing boundaries in professional and even personal relationships by commenting on her external appearance is not wise. After all, an MP must be different than men who call out to women on the street, trying to get their attention.

In 2015, 40 female journalists in France collectively published an open letter in Libération against sexist politicians, describing and condemning the sexist incidents they have experienced. A petition was launched alongside the letter, which carried the headline “We are female political journalists and victims of sexism,” to put an end to the gender-biased attitude toward female journalists.

 

In our society, such incidents are often disregarded, while in other countries, the sexist attitude toward female journalists causes a scandal. The matter is voiced, discussed, and sometimes as a result, political and public figures are stripped of their posts.

 

Feeding the idea that a woman’s professional quality and value is directly proportional to her physical beauty reinforces the stereotype that there’s something more to men than women, since the value and quality of men is completely independent of their physical appearance. At least in Armenia, no male journalist has received a compliment from a politician. In fact, the opposite has happened. 

Months ago, the very same Gagik Tsarukyan instead of calling a male journalist with RFE/RL’s Armenian service  a “beauty” called him a “spy.”

Calling a female journalist in a professional context a “beauty” is unwelcome especially by a MP candidate, who tomorrow may adopt laws in parliament on women’s rights and (in)equality, based on his own philosophy on the role and value of women.

Anna Barseghyan

Media.am