The 'Legs-it' debacle

Imagine, if you will for a moment, a picture of two male politicians.  For the sake of argument, let's picture Phillip Hammond and Jeremy Corbyn.

They're sitting, posing for press photos before having a meeting to discuss important things, like Brexit, a possible second Scottish independence referendum, the recent terrorist atrocity in Westminster, etc.  Very serious stuff.

Now, what if the newspaper headlines you read about this meeting talked about their hair, their clothes, or their shoes - wouldn't you consider this to be a little bit vacuous and inappropriate?

Wouldn't your response - like mine - quite rightly be 'I don't care what they're wearing!  I care what they're talking about!'

And yet, time and again, when important female politicians are pictured together their meeting is reduced to a discussion about their appearance and their outfits, or at least it is by certain portions of the media.

The latest absurd round of this happened with the so-called 'Legs-it' debacle, where a meeting between Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon was reduced to a discussion about who had the 'better' legs.  As they both have legs, they are fortunate to have two each, they use them for walking, it's really nothing new and worthy of comment.

Now here's the thing, and here's a good rule for us all to follow just in case there's any doubt and there are questions about what you can and can't say - if you wouldn't say it about a man, how about you don't say it about a woman either?

Nobody is talking about Hammond's hair or Corbyn's calves, and where their suits are from and who made their shoes, so why do it to May and Sturgeon?

It seems completely incongruous and inappropriate to try and reduce a meeting between two of the most powerful women in the UK to a discussion about calves, ankles, shoes and hosiery.

This is not only an insult to their intelligence, but ours too!