After the coverage of Jacqui Smith’s cleavage and Hilary Clinton’s cleavage we now have the case of Emily Maitlis’s legs.

Newsreader extraordinaire has been criticised for wearing a skirt which was so unedifyingly short (i.e. knee length) it might titilate the watchers of Newsnight. Now lets take a closer look here… Emily Maitlis is seen sat securely on the desk/podium/useless piece of scenery designed to look contemporary. Her skirt covers her knees pretty much leaving only shin, calves, ankles and the tops of her feet exposed.

But somehow this was enough to enrage BBC Bulletin Board writers to declare that it was

“”indulgent” and “completely inappropriate”. One viewer complained that she was “flashing her legs” while another added: “It is thoroughly unprofessional and obviously meant to be titillating. It is giving out all the wrong messages.” From BlogSpot

Unless I accidentally sleep-walked into a time-machine I thought this was 2007 in the UK rather than 1907 or in any repressed religious state. When did we wander into Gilead?

The Daily Mail has since carried a long piece on whether the newsreader should be made to cover up more whilst off duty as well as on (it’s here for those who are interested, it was really too inane to include quotations).

So for those who forgot this is the important stuff about Emily Maitlis that we should be remembering:

• She is a language graduate from Queens’ College, Cambridge.


• She speaks fluent French Spanish and Italian and what she describes as “crap” Mandarin.


• She has been a documentary maker in Cambodia and China and has worked as a presenter for the NBC network in Asia. She then moved to Sky News as Business Correspondent and subsequently to BBC London News.


• She secured the first admission from Tony Blair that he had backed the wrong horse to lead London.


• She has had two known stalkers.

Details from Wikipedia and the BBC website.

So maybe, just maybe, we could remember that women have bodies and are entitled to them. We don’t have to pretend to not have bodies just because our bodies are different to those of men. And, even more so, having a body is not automaticlly tantamount to sexual display. Sometimes we just have to take our bodies with us, and trust me “outraged of the victorian era” life would be much easier sometimes if we didn’t have to.

Posted by Louise Livesey on 25 August 2007, at 10:22 AM