It's A Lady With A Mustache
As part of my ongoing drive to stamp out inequality between the sexes, or at least come to some terms of inequality we can all agree with (like keeping different sets of privates for the purposes of procreation, and perhaps allowing men to get away with not carrying fetuses to full term as long as they don't start growing uteruses, because at that point, labor is going to be shared in all ways), anyway, as part of all that, I've decided to tackle the topic of women's mustaches. Or rather, in this hub, to illuminate one man's struggle to handle the sight of a woman wearing a mustache.
The action starts at 1.15. Let me preface this clip by saying that this is a real New Zealand presenter doing his real job, this is not an episode of Flight of the Concords. If you prefer to read words rather than listen to New Ziland accents, I've taken the liberty of transcribing the ground breaking exchange below.
Paul Henry: It's just people noticing things. It's people watching and noticing and I noticed as well and I thought, that is a mustache on a lady. It was a mustache on a lady, I just noticed it. And people can say what they see. It's just television isn't it, you know? It's a lady with a mustache, it's nothing to, you know, go back to your breakfast.
Female Presenter: May I, please?
Paul Henry: Yes. It's nothing to worry about though.
Female Presenter: May I, please?
Paul Henry: Yeah.
Female Presenter: Please. Please.
Paul Henry: Yep. Yeah.
Later on:
Paul: We've got a range of feedback today on different things. Rather than feedback, you could call it hate mail.
Female Presenter: It's mainly about hating Paul this morning. We do have to address this Paul, I'm sorry.
Paul: (Starts blathering on about a hooter under the desk and then giggles inanely.)
Female Presenter: Reading an email from a woman named Julie
Paul, your tactless insensitivity has reached all new lows. There are medical reasons why some women in New Zealand suffer from increased facial hair growth resulting in mustaches and for some poor women, even beards. (Paul almost loses it at this point.) Polycystic ovarian syndrome, Cushing's Disease, and tumors on the ovaries or adrenal glands are just some of them. For some of us, waxing still isn't enough to keep on top of the growth and laser hair removal surgery is well beyond the means of many of us. On behalf of the women of New Zealand who are already self conscious about how they look I really didn't appreciate being reduced to tears by your comments this morning.
Paul: Start a group. Really, there probably already is a group actually in this country. There's a group of everything, isn't there? How hard can it be to wax? It can't be hard can it? Why has everyone gone quiet?
Female Presenter AKA Voice of Reason: Because she makes a good point.
Paul: Well she makes a point, but at the end of the day, everyone at home was sitting there, we were sitting here and there was a lady with a mustache on. All I did was read out people's comments. It's like the elephant on the room, isn't it? God! There's a lady with a mustache! Don't mention it!
