Countryfile’s Anita blasts When I wear shorts on TV there’s a debate... that doesn’t happen to John Craven
COUNTRYFILE host Anita Rani is getting shirty over all the online sexist sniping about her clothes.
The TV star is sick of the double standards expressed on Twitter about male and female hosts on the BBC nature programme.
When Anita, 40, presents the weekly show in shorts there is a frenzy of activity on the social media site.
It is the level of attention she is sure fellow host John Craven would not have to endure.
“People always notice what women wear,” she said. “They never notice what the men wear.”
In fact her sporty outfits attract more comment than the skimpy, glittery frocks she wore to partner Gleb Savchenko on Strictly Come Dancing in 2015.
Anita is also less than impressed with the Beeb for a lack of “basic respect” for ethnic minorities.
She was appalled when it played a clip of the wrong actor in a tribute to Bollywood legend Shashi Kapoor, 79, who died on Monday.
She said t here had been blunders over her i dentity as well. And Emmy winning actor Riz Ahmed and Bafta winner Dev Patel had also been confused for each other .
She said: “They are two phenomenal British actors who look nothing like each other. That in itself is basic respect. I think race and where you’re from is a big issue and there is a lot that needs to come out about it. Black and Asian men get it pretty bad.”
Journalist turned presenter Anita has hosted Countryfile since 2015, alongside Matt Baker, 39, and John Craven, 77.
She said: “As a TV presenter I feel the pressure and it’s a pressure that the men don’t have.
“When I wear shorts on Countryfile, that always opens up a world of debate. I don’t know if the same thing happens when men wear shorts.
“Maybe me and John Craven should both wear shorts to see who gets the most comments. It’s unfortunate that women still have that judgment put on them.
“Is it annoying? Of course it i s . We want to move into a wo world where we are not judg judged on what we wear an and actually we are seen equally as our male counterparts, whether t that’s in television or in a an office environment. “Amazing A- l i s t ac actresses have been in ph phenomenal films and when they go on the red carpet the first thing people say is, ‘who are you wearing?’ “The i dea t hat pe people would ask Cate Bla Blanchett about the dress she she’s wearing rather than know knowing about the role she is d doing is ludicrous.” A Anita has teamed up wi with online job boards to totaljobs to champion i its campaign highlighting the impact that office dress codes have on employee well-being.
She stressed that women in “old fashioned” workplaces face more abuse than their male counterparts. She said: “We’re not going ‘all men are terrible’. It’s the idea that there is so much talk about equality, unless it’s highlighted people don’t think about it.
Lipstick
“In some working environments we still have this old fashioned almost Mad Men expectation of women to dress a certain way.
“It’s also probably this generational gap that is happening, the world is moving very fast now.
“You have a generation of men at the top of the tree in their mid to late 50s and young, powerful 24-year-old uni grad women coming into the workplace who live in a really different world. There’s lots of cultural shift and expectations of a different generation.
“When men wear a hoodie nothing is said but when women dress down they are asked if they are sick or hungover.
“It’s comments like that where I think society needs to move on.
“Women are trying to hold down a normal job and they shouldn’t be made to feel different from men.”
Bradford- born Anita started her career working on local radio before landing her first TV gig aged 24 – as well as her first lipstick.
She said: “Growing up I was very casual. I grew up in the 90s.
“I got my first lipstick at the age of 24 for my first presenting gig because I thought ‘Oh, I’m going to be on TV, I’d better wear lipstick’. In Bradford I worked in radio then as a researcher in music