US ambassador furthers the cause of women in Malta by talking about her shoe collection

This is an old one (2013) but it’s when her ridiculous behaviour first caught my attention, and that bloodied bandage stunt prompted me to look it up again.

1. No ambassador should EVER go on a tacky, stupid show like that.

2. No ambassador should EVER appear on a station owned by a political party, especially when he or she is already being suspected of undue collusion with members of that political party.

3. Every well-briefed ambassador and careful diplomat would know the significance of appearing as a guest on the Labour Party’s television station and saying that their favourite colour is RED, DEFINITELY RED. A good diplomat, well briefed, would – if her favourite colour really is red – have said ‘I don’t have a favourite colour.’

4. But then no ambassador that I can think of would find themselves in a position where they’re being asked about their favourite colour and how many shoes they own, on a tacky chat show. They are usually on BBC World or Sky News, being asked about ISIS.

5. We Maltese women who work at serious jobs are constantly battling a situation in which we are asked about childcare, make-up, hairstyles, fashion, shoes and other such small-talk, on the assumption that because we are women, then that’s all we can talk about. Then the US ambassador goes on TV and does just that. Thanks for nothing. In this case, it’s the show host who’s unable to talk about anything else, and that’s exactly why the ambassador shouldn’t have accepted the invitation or allowed herself to be put in that simpering, embarrassing position. What would the show-host have asked a man ambassador about – his collar-stays and tie-pins? His shaving-foam?