Yesterday afternoon, OELMEK president Demetris Taliadoros emerged, attempting to convince us that his comment about the Education Minister—that a “woman has turned up after 50 years to change the system”—isn’t sexist, and said this: “If I say that Annita is a good woman politician, is that a sexist comment?”
The answer is simple: Yes, it is sexist, Mr Taliadoros. Why not say “Annita is a good politician” without needing to specify that she’s a woman? Or, conversely: Would you ever formulate the position “Nicos Christodoulides is a good man politician,” or would you simply say he’s “a good politician” without specifying that he’s a male politician? Probably the latter.
And obviously Mr Taliadoros, as a philologist, can grasp both the conceptual difference and the social dimension of specifying gender in these two sentences.
Φ.Δ.
