As I was scrolling through Twitter Sunday morning, past tweets about the NBA Finals and Jose Bautista and Rougned Odor’s brawl, I saw a tweet about KTLA.
Social media, as we all know, is a powerful source of news and was rocked once again with a woman being sexualized, and this time, on live TV.
The tweet posted by Megan McGrath, director of development of Dating Naked, caused heated debates of comments and reactions of the sexism and inappropriateness of what happened.
On May 14, KTLA meteorologist Liberte Chan was handed a gray cardigan by anchor Chris Borrous in the middle of her morning weather report. Viewers were complaining about her black “cocktail party” dress through emails, according to Borrous, who is heard off-camera.
A 2014 Pew Research study showed women are more likely to be exposed to sexual harassment online and stalking, 25 percent in comparison to 13 percent for men.
A story in my senior project series was titled, “Journalism’s Glass Ceiling: Women sports journalists objectified.” In this story, I talked about women sports journalists and how they have to continually fight the criticism on social media sites and struggle in that world without being sexualized.
As I mention in the story, they have to “watch what they say, how they say it, and even how they dress.”
My point was proven on how they have to watch what they dress.
Chan responded Tuesday in a blog post on her personal website saying there was no controversy at KTLA and was not ordered to put on the cardigan. She also said she loves her job and enjoys working with her co-workers. Chan wanted viewers to know that it was never their intention to offend anyone, as it was a “co-anchor joke.”
I do not see it as a joke to have to publicly humiliate yourself into giving into those emails and having to put on a cardigan in the middle of your report. The fact that women are being sexualized to have to conform into what people want them to dress like is insulting.
Chan was wearing a different dress earlier in the day, but that dress affected the green-screen she had to stand in front of. She had to change, but apparently, she did not change into the right wardrobe.
Many people also took it to Borrous on Twitter to tell him he humiliated her on live TV and responded in apology saying it was not his intention to do so.
It was not a good way to address the issue and KTLA has not commented about this.
Women are constantly judged with their appearance rather than their performance. They are sexually harassed and degraded on social media and emails, which causes a bad image of women in the field and this needs to go and has gone on long enough.
This has become known as the #Sweatergate, but maybe it should be #stopsexualizingwomengate.
Jolene Nacapuy, a senior journalism major, is sports editor for the Campus Times. She can be reached by email at jolene.nacapuy@laverne.edu and on Twitter @jolenenacapuy.
Politics should’ be like the clowns, they should be more professional, and stop talking bad about
Other people, now they attaik people , they should be a little more professional and stop
clowning around.