“I had an editor-in-chief who said to me when he passed me in the corridor: ‘Hey, you have an ass, we would be good in it”“
Marie Portolano is a journalist and the author of “Je suis la femme du plateau” published by Stock. In 2021, she had already raised awareness within sports editorial offices with her documentary “I’m not a slut, I’m a journalist”, in order to denounce the macho, sexist and misogynistic behavior of certain colleagues. Today, with the release of her book, she continues her fight against the gendered role of journalists.
Sexist sports editorials
Denouncing violence against women has always been a fight that Marie Portolano wanted to lead. During her adolescence, she confides having been severely attacked. When she arrived in sports editorial offices, it was an anger that was always present within her, and given what she experienced there, denouncing this behavior was obvious. “It influenced my desire to work on THE violence against women and the violence that I knew at the time, that of the sports editors” she says.
When she arrived on the television set, she felt the “stupid presenter syndrome“. To explain this syndrome, she returns to a personal experience. One day, a channel director told her that he had followed her career for around ten years, including the discovery of her documentary. So, he understood that she wasn’t that stupid.”This represents exactly everything I’m trying to denounce in the book, which is to say that a TV presenter is necessarily stupid, until proven otherwise.” she says.
Finding your place as a woman
Marie Portolano always wanted to be a sports journalist. However, when she started, she quickly became disillusioned…: “I realized several times that I had not been hired for my skills, but rather for what I could represent on the air.“. This system, having this need for a woman on the set, made them believe many things. She ended up understanding thatthey saw her as nothing other than “the woman on the set”. According to the journalist, it is a phenomenon which is inherent to editorial teams and sports television sets. She says that it has even happened that editorial staff hired models to have women on set, even if it was not their career. “So when it was necessary to feminize and assess the antenna, it was complicated to impose ourselves and show that we had our place” she said. However, women were just as legitimate to talk about sport as men.
Sexist criticisms in this type of writing were numerous: “You’re here because you’re a woman, so you stole our job!“, “Ah no, but if she managed to get this interview, it’s because she must have sucked it“. Sentences that were obviously difficult for the journalist to hear. People focused on what she looked like. The comments concerned, for the majority, her outfit or her physique. During a sports program, he happened to wear glasses. Wearing this simple accessory enabled him to be in trending topics. However, the messages were only of a sexual nature. “And what’s terrible about this story is that the messages made me happy. I said to myself, ‘That’s it, I finally exist on set'” she confides.
Deconstruct this system
According to Marie Portolano, there are A certain type of woman who is retained in the world of sports journalism : those who are quite thin, white and more or less blonde. “There are few racialized women in sports editorial offices and particularly on television” she remarks. After all, a woman on a set is not there to provide her expertise. Ultimately, she is there to dress the set: “I participated in this system since I accepted these codes“. She was asked to be well dressed, well made up, well haired. The journalist tried to talk about it, but she didn’t feel listened to. When her documentary came out, everyone said hidden behind his only example, then the system refused to question itself.
“Once the system is deconstructed, individuals will be able to question themselves” declares Marie Portolano. Many men have come forward to congratulate her and prove her right. However, until now, these men who contact her are not the ones who have responsibilities in this system. Ultimately, what the journalist wants to show is this system which contributes to a certain unease among women at work. His solution is clear, it must be deconstruct for better harmony between men and women.