sexism

As prime minister, Julia Gillard remained instinctively private, consistently contained and, for a figure so much in the public eye, oddly enigmatic.

A new study disputes the claim that it harms female politicians when the media discuss their appearance.
I first found out I wasn't supposed to write about women politicians' clothes in 2006. Profiling the Democratic nominee for Nevada governor for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, I had described her as habitually wearing a "shapeless skirt suit."

When Laura Boldrini, 52, was elected as speaker of Italy’s lower house last month, she knew the job would come with enormous challenges. But she didn’t expect it to come with death threats. Last week, the former United Nations high commisioner for refugees Italian spokesperson sat in front of Italy’s lower house of Parliament and read some of the hundreds of squalid emails she has received since taking office. Many threatened rape, sodomy, torture, and murder. All the warnings were sexual in nature. “You need to be lynched, bitch,” one hater wrote.