With just one sentence – the first sentence – AAP has trivialised a candidate for the Sydney seat of Bradfield: Sex Party signs up feminist pole dancer:
A GENERATION Y feminist pole dancer named Zahra Stardust will be the Australian Sex Party’s candidate for the Bradfield by-election in December.
Generation Y! A feminist! A pole dancer! With a stage name! Get outta here!
In a story of just nine sentences, it’s not until the fifth sentence that we get to know about her credentials – other than the ones that excited a journo at AAP:
Ms Stardust, a law graduate whose real name is Marianna Leishman, has a colourful resume. Among stints at the United Nations and an ongoing masters degree, the feminist “Gen Y” writer also twirls fire, teaches pole dancing and swings from a trapeze for a living.
She has worked extensively with refugees and in indigenous affairs, and “hopes to seek resonance” with people in the Bradfield electorate who care about social justice and human rights issues, the statement said.
Call me crazy, but I would have thought she has a strong social justice resume, rather than a “colourful” one. And isn’t what she did during her “stints” at the UN a tad more important that the fact that she makes a living being hired by PR people to perform at corporate parties? And while I’ve saddled up this particular high horse, do we need to be told twice that she’s Gen Y? Most of us probably figured that out when told she’s 26. And if it’s so important to mention the generation, why isn’t that of Liberal candidate Paul Fletcher included?
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