Miss December? Really?

Pandagate should offend her "Royal Hotness" Pippa Middleton too: BBC treatswomen as a joke

Sweetie (Tian Tian) arrived at the Edinburgh Zoo in December. Sure, she's cute,but worthy of "Faces of the year 2011" recognition?
David Fu via Edinburgh.org
The list of women was released on Wednesday.
Photo via BBC News Magazine

What does it take to make an impression on the BBC? Apparently less than you think.

This week, BBC news magazine released a list of the 12 "Faces of the year 2011 — the women," one for each month. Some are obvious, some are surprising, but many readers found one in particular just plain offensive: Sweetie (Tian Tian), the Chinese panda, took the spot for December 2011. What did she do to deserve this acknowledgement?

According to the BBC,

Sweetie (Tian Tian), along with her fellow giant panda Sunshine (Yang Guang), was welcomed at Edinburgh airport with cheers and bagpipes after the pair's 11-hour journey from Chengdu in western China. Their arrival is the culmination of five years of lobbying by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and the government. Even the four pilots wore kilts in the pandas' honour. The pandas are on loan for a decade at a cost of £600,000 per year. Zoo bosses are hoping that Sweetie will produce cubs during that time."

With the (hopefully-to-be-impregnated) panda, that makes eight women who qualified for the list in a sexual or misogynistic capacity. Only four made the list on their own merits.

Women all over the world were understandably outraged, with "pandagate" trending on Twitter. This denial of recognition just compounded an earlier misstep by the BBC, when the news organization failed to include a single women on its list of nominees for BBC's Sports Personality of the Year.

Sure, women's basketball may not be an overwhelming international fan favorite, but was there really not a single female the BBC editors found more newsworthy than a panda bear?

Editor Giles Wilson wrote up a sort of justification, which was published on Thursday morning: "We generally produce a list of women and a list of men, and since we regard it as part of our job to make the list interesting and engaging, we try to include some choices which are not obvious or even predictable. . . This, after all, is not a definitive list of the most important or influential people. It's not based on people's achievements, their popularity or their contribution to society. And it's not a celebration of either gender's role in humanity — it's just a selection of some of the faces from the headlines from the past year."

Though it seems cliché and querulous to constantly point out every instance of sexism and injustice, it is apparent that this list marginalizes women.

Just take a look: Two women (Charlene Wittstock and the Duchess of Alba) were noted only because of their marriages, and two others on the list were allegedly raped (Eman al-Obeidi and Nafissatou Diallo).

Corporal Kelsey de Santis made the list for winning a dream date with Justin Timberlake, and (in the UK version) Sarah Burton for designing Kate Middleton's wedding dress (in the international version of the list, "Her Royal Hotness" Pippa Middleton replaces Burton for the face of April).

Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the pick for January, was shot by Jared Loughner, a young man who was "contemptuous of women in positions of power."

With the (hopefully-to-be-impregnated) panda, that makes eight women who qualified for the list in a sexual or misogynistic capacity. Only four made the list on their own merits. Compare that to the "Faces of the year 2011 — the men" — the UKor the international version.

But beyond that, some argue that the presence of the panda on this list cheapens the honor for the other women. What do you think?

unspecified

Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

undefined

Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”