Monday, March 7, 2022

Elections 2022: Fifty Fifty - this is not the suffragette way

Now I have spoken about the issues regarding women's quota in the parliamentary elections prior (please read here), which are a little tangled. But what disappointed me in the new Fifty Fifty ad about the elections is the tone of voice. A defeatist rather than a challenging one. Really. 

Let me give an example, the suffragette (i.e. women who were asking for the women's right to vote) movement was far from "peaceful". Many of them went to jail (Alice Paul went to jail seven times) and did hunger strikes . At least five were even killed during attacks on them. If I am telling this story it is to tell you that things got very heated before any result was achieved.

Now let's compare to the Fifty Fifty ad, the headline simply says "we want women in the parliament" which is fine and inoffensive, but the hashtag is what bothered me #let_us_sit_in_our_place or #permit_us_to_sit_in_our_place depending on how you translate it. Both ways, it's demeaning. Women seem to be "asking"/"pleading" rather than "asserting" which is quite weak in terms of tone of voice.

And I find this a very un-suffragette attitude.