Don’t you just cringe when a personal phone call between friends becomes column fodder? No? Can’t relate? You obviously don’t hang out with journalists.So, yesterday I told a dear friend that I thought his comments about CBC executive Kirstine Layfield (following Monday’s network presentation) were a bit too personal. Smart, non-chauvinistic man that he is, he saw the wisdom of my remarks.
(Do Blondes and Business Mix?)
Following his second blog posting about the matter, a small, steamy pile of responses flooded onto his blog, mostly from men missing the point and posting clever and revealing remarks like, “thought your description pretty much nailed her...Not that I mean nailed as in...”
Ha, ha!
Or get a load of this one, posted by a courageous, deep thinker who’s chosen the crafty moniker anonymous. “If the CBC's kittenish programming mistress paid as much attention to her job as she does on her wardrobe then perhaps some of the most serious blunders in the CBC's 50+ year history might have been averted. But maybe that's the idea - who wants to level criticism at such a hot looking broad.”
Another embodiment of valour, also named anonymous wrote: “Exactly! Please do remember this is the woman responsible for cutting jPod well before it was given a chance to find the audience it deserved. She's dressing in a specific way to deflect mistakes made.”
Note to anonymous(s): Grow a set.
For the record, I didn’t just object to the chosen descriptors, referring to Layfield as a “kittenish programming executive,” it was also the phrase she “stood on the riser to show off her fabulous pins and red shoes.”
I wasn’t there, but I assume she took the stage to make a programming announcement.
I assume she stood on the riser to do her job. I assume she’s functioning at a high enough level that she doesn’t imagine her duties for the day include preening for the boys, no matter how much they’d like to think she’s fussing and fluffing just for them.
Sometimes, it’s not all about you. Usually it is, you captains of the universe, but every now and again, it’s not. It’s just not.
Kirstine Layfield isn’t Canada’s only female network exec, just like Belinda Stronach isn’t Canada’s only female Parliamentarian. But there’s a stink about the comments directed at Layfield, that’s identical to the foul aroma of remarks made about Stronach. So, what is it about women like them that sparks such trivialization and dismissive vitriol?
Yes, that was a rhetorical question, Virginia.
The answer is buried, but not very deeply, within the comments made about both. Remember the jackass who called Stronach, “an attractive dipstick?” No, I can’t remember his name either, but then again, I’m blonde too.
Do you recall when Stronach gave herself a brunette dye job? Talk about closing the barn door, long after the svelte, filly with great pins has already run off. Stronach, after battling breast cancer, has retreated from the spotlight. Insults about her “blonde ambition,” no longer fill editorial pages.
Is Layfield becoming blonde punching bag Plan B? Why do beautiful women like her, or Stronach, bring out the ugly in some people?
Layfield, just like her boss CBC-TV vice-president Richard Stursberg, deserves to have her programming choices and decisions analyzed and criticized. That goes with the contract she signed. Considering that there are some serious questions to be asked about whether or not the current Stursberg/Layfield regime is fulfilling the terms of CBC’s mandate, that’s where attention ought to be directed.
Instead, we get the admonition that she’s a “hot broad,” and responsible for “some of the most serious blunders in the CBC's 50+ year history.”
Oh, really? Hardly. For starters 1) She works for Stursberg, she’s not the one who hired him. 2) Remember the great CBC Employee Lock-Out of 2005? Nothing to do with her. Before her time. 3) Why are you depriving Robert Rabinovitch of the credit he deserves?
Layfield is, I’m sure, tough enough to handle criticism of her programming decisions. But discussion about the issues ought to focus on the issues. And when it doesn’t, it speaks volumes about those making the comments, not her.
Some men resent women for their own responses to a woman’s perceived level of attractiveness. And when that woman also happens to wield a lot of power, well, Houston we may have a problem. Fortunately, some men have come up with a clever solution to said problem: it’s called a burqa.
So to review: Kirstine Layfield works as CBC’s executive director of network programming. She is blonde. She is hot. Get over it.
And the most eloquent thought I can muster in advance of some inevitable comments: Bite me.
