bias / language / politics

What’s Missing From This Photo?

Jender5 Comments

themissingclintonHint: The headline, from Salon, is “America’s Next Top Spouse”. But when you click on the story and look at the URL, you learn that the real title is “Candidate Wives Guide”. False gender-neutrality, anyone? Wow. I mean, she’s only the front runner. And he’s only an ex-President.  It’s really very strange. The article *does* discuss Bill as spouse, and uses lots of ‘he or she’, and the official title is gender-neutral. But then there’s the photo. And the title in the URL. If the Clintons are still causing this much cognitive dissonance at *Salon*, one has to wonder how much more is out there. Or, more succinctly: WTF?

5 thoughts on “What’s Missing From This Photo?”

  1. I thought the same thing. Very annoying. It leaves the impression that a male first spouse wouldn’t really be just a first spouse and would somehow be something more. Please. I think he’d make as good a first spouse as Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Edwards, or Cindy McCain would. No better, no worse. Why not feature him in with the rest of them on equal footing?

  2. Maybe the women weren’t comfortable being asked to stand in close quarters to him while posing for the photo?

  4. I think in general that your opinion of the first spouses should not be important. Or specifically “I voted or Alex because their spouse was really nice” is a terrible (although sadly quite common) reason for placing a vote, and presenting ones spouse to the media seems a bit like an insult to the public.

    But I suppose as much as Bill bashing might be de jour he does have experience and not even experience of the “I screwed it up entirely” variety (I am thinking of the big picture here).

    As to Jender’s point I think it is correct. Pssibly what happened is that someone wrote the story expectingBill to be in the image and the editor got at the story and changed it to be more commercial. (I can imagine it might be less commercial to show Bill surrounded by women in such a photo.)

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