Tory Candidate criticises Stella Creasy for not being a wife or mother

From David Cameron telling Angela Eagle to “calm down dear” to female MPs saying they had sexual abuse shouted at them – the past 5 years of the last parliament proved that sexism is by no means dead (look at the numbers of the last parliament and the gender breakdown of candidates for May for further proof). And if today’s political leaflets in Walthamstow are anything to go by, it’s very much still alive.

Molly Samuel-Leport, the Tory candidate in the constituency, has put out a leaflet in which she compares her credentials with those of Labour PPC – and MP for the area since 2010 – Stella Creasy.

Samuel-Leport points out that she has been a cleaner, an athlete, a shop assistant and a teacher(she’s also said she’s a ‘Champion’ but we’re not sure what of, if she’s unseated Danny, we missed the news reports) while claiming that Creasy is a “career politician”. As political attacks go, that’s more-or-less fair game.

The really troubling bit of this comparison is that Samuel-Leport says she’s a ‘wife’ and ‘mother’, while Creasy, she shows with resounding silence, is not. This pushes the offensive shrew stereotype (borrowing from the Bard); how dare a woman be unmarried and childless but have a career, we’re all supposed to gasp.

It’s unlikely that a man would face this kind of criticism but if they were it would be bad too: judging a candidate on the basis of their marital or parental status simply isn’t on.

But at least Samuel-Leport’s message ends on a strong note: she understands ‘you’ (that’s you Walthamstow constituents) while Creasy understand Ed Miliband (who’s name is in red – red Ed, get it?). This is classic, opportunistic Tory attack on Miliband – despite the fact that the public have said these baseless tactics just shows they’re ‘nasty party’. This leaflet is evidence to add to ever growing pile of evidence…