Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1332685
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 JANUARY 2021 COMMENT What are we skinning? Kamala Harris officially taking on the vaunted post of Vice President of the United States of America, after Joe Biden was officially inaugurated President on January 20th. Why are we skinning it? Because it puts into stark focus archi- lawyer and construction lobby cheerleader Robert Musumeci's declaration that the female contingent of Malta's parliament should be populated by "sympathetic and unpretentious women". You're saying that Kamala Harris is the opposite of both those things? It would be a tad too ambitious - and, indeed, pretentious - of me to scrunch up an analysis of both Harris's psychological make-up AND political style in a couple of lines... but both her track record and forceful take-up of the anti-Trump campaign certainly suggest that someone of her ilk would be far from the imaginary list Musumeci may have had in mind when talking about prospective female MPs. But isn't this another storm in a teacup? Just millennials, Z-lennials and Gen Y whiners nitpicking over terminology and calling for political correctness? Hmm. Do elaborate. Well, nothing wrong with wanting candidates who are 'generally nice people', is there? No, but let's not hide from the fact that female professionals of any stripe are held to a different standard than their male counterparts, and that this is doubly true when it comes to the highly contentious - and highly public - roles of MPs and parliamentarians. But why is 'sympathetic and unpretentious' so triggering? It directly correlates to the kind of 'docile' stance one is traditionally - and toxically - expected women to assume. Don't rock the boat. Don't do anything to upset fragile male egos. Be 'the angel of the house', and if you really must enter politics, do it quietly and without muddying up the status quo in any way. Do you really think Musumeci is capable of rolling up so many concepts into one pithy and online-outrage-ready missive? That's the beauty of inherited bigotry, isn't it? It comes ready made for people of all intellectual abilities to use, having snowballed, over the ages, into an off-the-shelf nugget of retrograde truism. But do you honestly believe Musumeci and his ilk would be uncomfortable with the likes of Kamala Harris in the Maltese parliament? Even putting aside the diversity element which is such a crucial part of what makes Harris's nomination historic... her former role as a prosecutor makes her a forcefully controversial figure even among the broadly progressive base of Democratic voters who would otherwise be fully on her side. Can you imagine such a 'complex' figure being thrust upon Musumeci to figure out? Given his own track record, though... That's true. He's jumped through quite a few complex hoops over the years in his bid to justify the most ludicrous construction and planning follies. So maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. Do say: "While there is a risk of misplaced outrage in over- emphasising Musumeci's choice of words over his alleged intent, neither should public figures feel comfortable in resorting to such riskily retrograde language, particularly when talking about the gender quotas in parliament issue - a progressive- on-paper measure which is nonetheless both controversial and unsatisfactory for many, for various reasons." Don't say: "I'm not sure how someone with six Facebook profiles can even think of speaking about being sympathetic and unpretentious... much less, as he later rephrased it, humble." Ian Borg Roads minister's defiant defence PAGES 8 & 9 The Skinny Malta, shrunk down JOSANNE CASSAR The world can allow itself to start hoping again PAGE 5 MICHAEL FALZON Labour's metamorphosis PAGE 7 No. 71 – Kamala Harris fails the Musumeci Pretentiousness Test SAVIOUR BALZAN Managing a fiasco PAGE 5 EDITORIAL Restoring normality to America PAGE 2 "The fact that I was criticised doesn't mean that I was wrong; all it means is that some people disagree with me, on that particular issue"