Katie Couric: Sexism in America
Posted on July 24, 2008
Filed Under Media, News, Women | Comments Off on Katie Couric: Sexism in America
America’s highest paid newscaster has claimed she is a victim of sexism and that discrimination based on gender is more prevalent – and tolerated – in US society than racism.
Katie Couric, the CBS evening news anchor who earns a reported $15 million a year, compared herself to failed presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton in an interview with Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.
“I find myself in the last bastion of male dominance, and realizing what Hillary Clinton might have realized not long ago: that sexism in the American society is more common than racism, and certainly more acceptable or forgivable,”
Miss Couric told the paper as she covered Senator Barack Obama’s Middle East tour.
“In any case, I think my post and Hillary’s race are important steps in the right direction.”
Ms Couric, who in 2006 became the first woman to present a primetime network news broadcast solo, has faced intensive scrutiny not only of her job performance but her outfits and personal life since taking over the CBS Evening News.
And last month, Leslie Moonves, the network’s chief executive, suggested the sexist attitudes of people “who don’t want news from a woman” were partly to blame for her poor ratings, which last month hit a 20-year low for the program.
Her opponents claimed she is too nice, too sweet, that her too-short skirts exposed legs that are too pretty, that hard news is not her cup of tea, and that in any case her salary is inflated. The dignified interviews she held with world leaders, with kings and heads of state, and even with John Kennedy, Jr. in the last interview he gave before he died, are ignored. Her detractors insisted on remembering her interview of Elmo, the “Sesame Street” character and the animated puppets. Read full Ha’aretz article
