Egad, Skank TV is back!

Four-inch heels? Sure. But no on-air bare arms for this gal


Excuse me while I chuckle.

Kim Campbell is admonishing female news anchors who wear sleeveless dresses on the air, calling the bare-armed attire "demeaning."

The former prime minister tweeted her displeasure with the fashion choice on Tuesday morning by saying "bare arms undermine credibility and gravitas."


The controversy harkens back to a similar uproar over female attire on the now-defunct Sun News Network.

That flap erupted soon after the right-wing all-news network debuted in April 2011, with National Post columnist Tasha Kheiriddin deriding the network's female journalists for dressing like cocktail hostesses in "low cut, sleeveless" attire.

At the time, Luiza Ch. Savage of Maclean's magazine also called the all-news network "Skank TV" in a tweet that was eventually retracted.

I remember the Skank TV flap quite well. I was at Sun News at the time, working the morning shift. And I was one of the rare female on-air journalists never to show my arms on screen.

No, not because I'm a prude. Or because my arms are jelly. I assure you they're not. I lift enough weights, and do enough pushups... But I don't show my triceps on TV.

People are obviously free to wear whatever they want. I don't judge. But personally, I felt more authoritative wearing a suit, so that's what I did. Despite my chuckling, I do think Kim Campbell is out of line with her criticism. It's fine to express your own preferences, not to insult those who make different choices.

My retirement

Politics for the rest of us - the story