Fawzia Peer deserved a better reception
IWRITE in reference to the article “Outrage at inaction on crime” which appeared in your esteemed newspaper, the Sunday Tribune, on June 3.
Ms Denise Ganas, your insensitive utterances directed at caring citizens and politicians who visited your home subsequent to the untimely death of your beloved husband, begs a response.
The trio you publicly vituperated at the recent meeting is not responsible for apprehending criminal suspects contrary to your understanding. That is the responsibility of SAPS. These individuals had only come to visit you because they cared enough to do so.
And certainly not for “show” as you put it. The government officials you malign can call up a press briefing every day if they so wished rather than waiting for a tragedy to stage a show.
In this regard, I refer in particular to your callous remarks aimed at deputy mayor Fawzia Peer for reasons of taking exception to the quality of snapshots taken of her at your residence for media publication.
Denise, politicians often pay their respects and while doing so, they may even offer a moment of lightheartedness.
They come to console and not to mourn with us.
If they were to be in official mourning, state protocol would require politicians to wear black attire when visiting bereaved citizens and carrying bunches of sympathy flowers.
As citizens, it is probably difficult to accept that politicians are still politicians in our moment of grief. We should not expect their wardrobes or their hairstyles to change every time there is a tragedy in the community.
A politician’s commitment towards ongoing public duty and the associated public image that goes along with it does not necessarily have to reorient to our moment of sadness.
Our feelings could continue into perpetuity.
For discerning female politicians, dress and appearances are arguably sacrosanct as the importance we may place on prosthetics and burial apparel for the sojourn of our deceased loved ones.
Though superficial, yet society places great importance on these aspects.
Nobody objects to our appreciation for beautification despite our outpouring of grief.
Why do we object then, when the living around us ask for the same degree of respect in the way they are portrayed?
A media-savvy politician like Peer may well be aware that appearances go well beyond subliminal stereotyping of an aesthetically curious public.
A well-acquainted politician as she is, she could also be aware of research that has been done in the US and elsewhere regarding the impact of media’s portrayal of women in politics.
For the benefit of readers and journalists, The Conversation, carried a headline in this regard as follows: “Five ways the media hurts female politicians, and how journalists everywhere can do better”.
The Conversation cites the following as the top five journalism gender traps:
1 Focusing on women’s domestic life.
2 Attaching them to powerful men.
3 Saying they get emotional. 4 Discussing their looks. 5 Commenting on their voices. The Conversation further reports in the same article: Rome recently elected its new mayor, a corruption-fighting lawyer, and city councillor. But it was her looks that dominated the news: “Meet the beautiful girl who wants to be Rome’s mayor” and “Virginia Raggi, the new and beautiful mayor of Rome”.
So image and appearances for insightful, astute politicians with the likes of Peer, do matter.
In this instance, the gender trap reporting of this incident insinuates the deputy mayor had disrespected a sensitive occasion.
This is out of place with the person of her demeanour and her perceivable characterisation.
What is also questionable is why the journalist who covered this story did not verify the remarks of Ganas with Peer, but ran to print, thereby tarnishing the image of the deputy mayor?
This innuendo cannot pass arbitrarily in the public domain.
I do not think it fair for media to blithe one of the very few honest, uncorrupted politicians we have in our city, perhaps even in the country, through uncanny reporting.
Peer is an asset to society who should be given our full support.
As The Conversation succinctly puts it with regard to the media’s portrayal of female politicians, “journalists everywhere can do better”.
TAYBA ALI umdloti