Of all the international attention showered on Justin Trudeau the day after his election, one theme prevailed above the rest: The new prime minister of Canada is a total BABE.
This is Canada's new Prime Minister. pic.twitter.com/1koNplpPjL
— kelly oxford (@kellyoxford) October 20, 2015
“Canada’s new prime minister is super hot” screamed one headline over at US Weekly. “Canada’s hot new prime minister has the Internet sweating maple syrup” read another at Mashable.com (the story’s 13,700 shares suggest readers agree).
So, THIS is Canada's new prime minister… 🔥 https://t.co/pdpSRiA05w pic.twitter.com/rXdzEBW4aB
— Us Weekly (@usweekly) October 21, 2015
But is there a double standard here? If our future prime minister were a woman, we would be outraged if the media were focused on how attractive she was. So is it unfair, degrading or maybe even sexist to publicly lust after Trudeau?
A Twitter exchange this afternoon between a Globe and Mail columnist Elizabeth Renzetti and American writer Roxane Gay showed how differently feminists respond to that question:
If the new PM were a woman and legions were drooling over her, twitter would break with the outrage (maybe one day we'll test this theory)
— Elizabeth Renzetti (@lizrenzetti) October 21, 2015
Gay, known for her latest book of essays Bad Feminist, disagreed, arguing that saying Trudeau is attractive is “in no way degrading him.”
That's a false equivalence for many, many reasons. @lizrenzetti
— roxane gay (@rgay) October 21, 2015
Gay argued the difference is context: “Wealthy white men have never been subjugated or objectified the way women have,” she tweeted, and therefore it can’t be experienced as sexism in the same way.
@lizrenzetti if we talk about their looks no one is assuming they are nothing more than their looks.
— roxane gay (@rgay) October 21, 2015
There’s a “cultural context” and history of objectification that needs to be considered here, Gay said. But that’s no reason to subject men, in 2015, to the objectification women have had to deal with for centuries, Renzetti countered.
@rgay yes, we deal with a history of objectification, which perhaps should make us more sensitive to its degradations when it happens to men
— Elizabeth Renzetti (@lizrenzetti) October 21, 2015
While the two agreed to disagree on some points, they got on level about one thing — if we’re going to objectify, let’s make it completely equal opportunity.
@rgay I completely agree with you there.
— Elizabeth Renzetti (@lizrenzetti) October 21, 2015
Related:
When Justin met Sophie
The night Justin Trudeau swept to power
Exclusive photos of the Trudeaus at home
