The 2015 General Election has provided sociology teachers and students with a wealth of information showing just how the media views and presents our female politicians. As a starter activity, students could be show articles such as those identified below:
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Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘fashion transformation’:
Discover More Goodbye death row hair, hello super-sleek soon to be First Minister Nicola
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Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘baby hopes’:
Discover More NICOLA Sturgeon has revealed she hasn’t ruled out being a mum.
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Nicola Sturgeon as ‘the wee lass with the tin helmet on’:
Discover More Labour MP’s ‘tin hat’ Nicola Sturgeon jibe mocked
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How Nicola Sturgeon has become ‘sexier with age, income and office’:
Discover More Nicola Sturgeon is living proof women become sexier with age, income and office
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The up close cartoon of her breasts:
Discover More SNP Plans for NHS database
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Superimposing her onto a Miley Cyrus wrecking ball image:
Discover More Wrecking Ball Plans of Ed SNP Pals
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And this image of her as Kim Kardashian (which was even retweeted by the BBC’s Newsnight team):
Discover More Newsnight Tweet
After looking over these representations and articles (and setting political views aside), students can look at the national newspapers in an attempt to find representations of male politicians – this works well as a ‘think, pair, share’ exercise. Individually, students can then use computers to create their own newspaper front page which depicts and covers a male politician in a similar way to that experienced by Nicola Sturgeon.
After completing these tasks, an article which brings the discussions to a conclusion can be found here:
Discover More Nicola Sturgeon
