It's time for this to stop

• Women aren’t worth listening to.
• Women are less able.
• Women are objects.
• Women are less likely to achieve great things.
• Women are to be judged on how they look before anything else.

These messages are put across loud and clear in the media. They’re in the way women are pictured and described. They’re in the predominance of men as commentators and authoritative voices. They’re behind the zapping and the pricking and the smearing of women’s faces to make them “camera-ready”.

The issues behind this are of course complex. For example, many of us women have internalised those messages ourselves, having been exposed to them all our lives.

However, one thing is simple.
These messages are sexist.
They put women down for being just that – women.

It’s time for this to stop.