Fox News “War On Women”

Suzanne Ciechalski, Staff Writer • October 29, 2014

Fox News stirred the pot this week when its own Kimberly Guilfoyle stated that young women should be excused from jury duty because they are young, healthy, hot and stress-free. She suggested that young women be excused from jury duty and go back to playing on Match.com and Tinder.

Her comments sparked outrage amongst viewers as she followed up by talking about young women voting which caused people to think that she was saying young women should be excused from voting.

Either way, Guilfoyle is wrong for stereotyping women in such a derogatory way. Fox News is also guilty of suggesting that women should not partake in elections.

Media Matters for America recently released a compilation of Fox News figures and conservative commentators, such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, making these suggestions. In Coulter’s clip, she says “I used to think women just shouldn’t be able to vote. Now I think at least liberal women should not be able to hold office,” while discussing a feud between Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Dianne Feinstein over gun control.

Limbaugh stated, “When women got the right to vote’s when it all went downhill.” In March 2012, Fox News contributor Jesse Lee Peterson suggested that women intimidate men, so men just let women run around “screwing up everything.”

He also said, “one of the greatest mistakes that America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote.”

Comments like these contribute to the idea that women aren’t just weak, but unintelligent, uninformed and inferior in comparison to males. It is dangerous to allow these ideas to be aired on national television for all of our youth to see because it degrades women and contributes to malicious stereotypes that those before us worked so hard to end.

The mistake here is not giving women the right to vote or to do jury duty. The mistake here is allowing the media to have the ability to spew their opinions all over for people to hear. Regardless of a person’s political beliefs, news is news, and most people do not turn it on to listen to commentators discuss their own, personal biases, especially ones as dangerous as those on Fox.

The simple fact that such things are even uttered on national television is not only disgusting, but also extremely unsettling in the year 2014.

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About the Contributor

Suzanne Ciechalski, Editor-in-Chief

Suzanne Ciechalski is a senior journalism major with a minor in government and politics. In her second year as EIC, she hopes to continue increasing the Torch’s editorial content by spanning coverage to include news within the local community outside of SJU, and breaking news. She also hopes to expand the Torch’s visibility by building on the paper’s online presence and by reaching out to students through stories, journalism workshops and other events. Before graduating, she hopes to instill an element of community service within the Torch by reaching out to local high schools about how the Torch can help them build on their current newspaper, or develop one. Suzanne has been with the Torch for three years, previously serving as the opinion editor and as a staff writer. Have any questions? Email Suzanne at [email protected]