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Amber Sherlock video: Just stop with the misogyny onslaught that is #Jacketgate

Sarah Thomas

Stop. Please, for the love of God, just stop it.

I've done my best to avoid #jacketgate over the past few days, but there has been something about it that has been really niggling away at me.

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Viral video of Nine News presenter Amber Sherlock berating colleague Julie Snook has been made the butt of jokes by late night US TV host Jimmy Kimmel.

The fervour and vigour of the response to the Nine News leaked footage has been an absolutely fantastic display of women-hating. Good job everyone, well done, a round of applause to you all. It's nice to see that in 2017 belittling women in the workplace, or in any place, is still defiantly loud and proud.

Yes, it's funny, and wipes the veneer off the smiley, groomed, white-teeth sheen of TV reporting. But there's something very, very sinister about the glee with which this story has been embraced. The story is demeaning, belittling and amounts to a display of dangerously insidious misogyny. It's vile.

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At the end of the day, it was a perfectly reasonable exchange. Amber Sherlock was right to suggest that the three white outfits on screen wouldn't work, as she would know as an experienced professional. And it was a totally valid act to remind Julie Snook that she had requested this earlier. Snook is also perfectly valid in her response that she had been too busy. The entire exchange is clearly two under-pressure women maintaining their own workplace standards.

But, of course, women arguing will be pitched and enjoyed as a catfight, even though in this case it actually amounts to two professionals asserting themselves. Would such a response have happened if it were men? No, of course not. Men in the workplace are assertive and in control, women are bossy or bitchy, remember?

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So can we break these two highly experienced, high-achieving professionals in an incredibly competitive line of work down to an attack of mocking dismissiveness? Of course we can! Look at the silly women arguing over clothes!! Silly women!!

Yes, they do speak to each other passive-aggressively, bordering on openly hostile, but – spoiler alert – that is how people speak to each other in the workplace. This leaked footage is what we've all experienced – it's the equivalent of overhearing a dispute between colleagues and pretending to type, head down but ears cocked. However, this eavesdropping travels a very dangerous path.

We already know the scrutiny that women broadcasters endure – one only need think of Karl Stefanovic's same-suit-for-a-year experiment or Samantha Armytage getting pilloried for wearing full-brief underwear.

But with Jacketgate, when Sherlock is getting paparazzi outside her home, what on earth is happening? This is next level. What were the photographers expecting to get exactly? Sherlock sobbing into a white dress with a gin bottle aiming darts at a picture of Snook?

The coverage has been ludicrous. Fairfax Media has admittedly published stories on this – including this piece, and yes, I'm aware of the irony – while other outlets such as the Daily Mail have gone into a peak woman-hating tailspin over the "epic diva meltdown". One can only imagine the misogyny boner that was triggered in that newsroom once this story dropped.

I feel sad that for these two women their tremendous, admirable career achievements might now be permanently overshadowed with this nonsense. Will the colour white really come to define their careers, over all their hard work, experience and skill?

You really have to question the motives of the person who leaked the footage and how it grossly undermines the profession they work in. Is it funny? Yes. Is it something in the public good? No. Does it serve to undermine women in the workplace and in general? Unquestionably.

The clash over a jacket is not the nicest of exchanges but it's an understandable one. What is disgusting is that it's been celebrated for being the anti-sisterhood, and that's apparently a thing to relish.

Jacketgate makes me sick to my stomach. It's insulting, dismantling and derogatory.

Aren't we better than this? At a time when the United States is about to be run by an unhinged sexist lunatic, shouldn't we step it up a little, behave better and pay attention to what matters?

The high standards, skill, experience and hard work on display by both Sherlock and Snook should be something to aspire to, not mock.

Jacketgate has been a very unpleasant incident for everyone.

Now make it stop. Please. 

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