Chelsea Handler Stands up to the Boys!

image via Elle

           Chelsea Handler, the fearless E! late night host, recently expressed her dismay regarding a New York Times article about Jimmy Fallon's new job as the host of the Tonight Show, that listed other late-night competitors, all men,  but then bizzarely put Handler's name in parentheses. What does she believe is behind this bizzare punctuation treatment?

      "I wanted to confirm what a parenthetical suggests, so I looked up the definition. The first few definitions that came up were: incidental, subordinate in significance, minor or casual," Handler writes. 

     "Until now, I have dismissed the assumption that my experience in late night TV is somehow different or exceptional because of my gender. To me, it's never been about being a woman in a man's world; it's been about delivering a consistently funny and entertaining show each night."

But the Times' choice to include her as an afterthought or etcera, raises the question of Sexist treatment by the media.  Handler asks, "Was it because I'm a woman?

Elle Magazine concludes, "It's important to note that  Chelsea Lately show garners some of the youngest average viewers, the precise audience NBC is targeting with Jimmy Fallon, which makes her much more than a parenthetical factor in the equation. And it's this—the fact that she's actually good at her job—that she wants recognized, not the fact that she's a woman who's good at her job:

                "And just as I don't want to be inconsequential in any late-night discourse, I also don't want to be singled-out and lauded merely because I am successful "for a woman." I only want to be acknowledged for having worked hard to build an equally significant audience and fan base to those of my peers. I believe the success of any woman should never be qualified by her gender."

       But while many, including the New York Times, writes off Handler's argument, empirical evidence is on her side. TheWrap notes that a report released  this week from the Women's Media Center proved that women are still underrepresented in media, with the Times as one of the noted offenders with men quoted more often than women in frontpage stories and the number of male columnists outweighing women.

Read more: Chelsea Handler-Sexism in Media - ELLE 

Good for Chelsea Handler for standing up for herself! What do you guys think? Do you think the media treats women equally? Comment below! xo Steph You