As an avid follower of French politics, the recent political controversy that Charlie Hebdo has generated once again in France, hasleft me with a strong sense of revulsion.

As one may recall, the satirical magazine was in the news a few years back when its offices were attacked by Muslim fanatics who were offended at the magazine’s front-page caricature of the prophet Mohamed. The free world was behind this journal backing its right to give offence,as this was considered as formingpart of the system of new-values in the Western World. Back then, this position was embraced by many in Malta, including pro-Labour journalists, who vouched their support for Charlie Hebdo.

This time round,Charlie Hebdo isin the news for another political caricature featuring the newly elected French President holding the hand of his “ageing” wife. Nothing offensive perhaps, but the fact remains that EmmanuelMacron, who is younger than his wife, was subjected to ridicule by this French satiricaljournal for having a wife who could have been his mother.

This created controversy in France for when a man, like President Trump or Berlusconi,has a wife who is much younger, he is considered to be macho and having sexual prowess!

What the French publicactually foundmost offensive was the fact that Mme Macron was portrayed as a pregnant woman. The point here is not about pregnancyper se (after all, France is a country that supports abortion) but the fact that Macron’s wife is past childbearing age. As a result of this Hebdo caricature, politicians of the Left, as well as the Right, considered this portrayal in very bad taste. The magazine has been accused of being misogynistic and its ratings and supportershave fallen abysmally low.

I refer to this incident not just to show that in politics things change very quickly, but more importantly because we have a similar situation in Malta. Bang in the middle of our electoral campaign, we experienced, and are still experiencing, a similar situation.

Asin France, theattack carried a misogynist content that came from the Left. I am here referring to the political caricatures of Marlene Farrugia that Labouris dishing out.I frankly find them distasteful and misogynistic in content.

am not disputing  Labour’s right to draw  caricatures of Marlene Farrugiaor anyone else, for that matter. What I am contesting is their sexist content.

As only too often normally happens in Malta, NGOs and women’s associations have a tendency to voice their concerns on simple issues. Yet, to my great bewilderment, in this case,none of the established NGOs or women’s associations voiced their concern or said a word of disapproval aboutthese caricatures. 

Irrespective whether one agrees with Marlene Farrugia’s stand or not, this is an issue of how the female body and image is portrayedon our local political scenario. Despite all the political discourse about the need of involving more women in politics, our way of thinking is still predominantly male oriented.

On the one hand, we hear and read about the need for more women to join the political fray while on the other, we allow a woman who founded her own party to be attacked, not because of her ideas, but because she is female!    Clearly, all previous Labour talk of being pro-women and in favour of equality is being blatantly undermined,demonstrating only political expediency.

Marlene Farrugia is being portrayed as a woman who can wreakdamageon manhood and challenge the dominance of our Island’s male politicians.Certain posts uploaded on social media, created by Labour supporters, verge on pornography.

In one post, a pornographic image of a sadomasochistic act was recycled to portray Marlene Farrugia and her partner. Where is Helena Dalli in this instance? One would have expected her to issue some sort of statement and condemn this type of caricaturing, which has given rise to the creation of these nasty misogynist images on social media.

In France, the Socialists and women groups had no problem to condemn Charlie Hebdo with regard to Macron’s wife. Disapproval came also from other Leftist groups despite the fact that the magazine in question is pro-Left and considered to have strong Trotskyan leanings. In Malta, Labour seems to be  encouraging this sort of nasty imaging.

The images of Marlene Farrugia as a sort of matron or dominatrix are not on.  Nor, incidentally, are those images of her partner, Godfrey Farrugia, as a submissive slave. Indeed, I wish to take this opportunity to express my solidarity with their plight.

It is true that these images are not all circulated and officially originating from the Labour Party. Alas,however, it is also true that they are emanating from individuals who are close to this party.The irony is that the LabourPartyput up billboards that are anti-feminist in content, thussending the message that it is not in control of its own electoral campaign.

Incidentally, Marlene is being projected as more important than Simon Busuttil. Perhaps she is, but these billboards are portrayinga body language that should be unacceptable to a party whose leader currentlyholds the Presidency of the European Union.

In a democratic Europe, thistype of imagingis considered offensive both by Liberals as well as the Left. Unfortunately, in Malta, the Left is pushing these offensive stereotypes in a hit and miss fashion,which does not help the Labour cause nor our country’s political representation.

There is a positive angle to all this in that Marlene Farrugia had the intelligence to refer to these caricatures during her University debate. As someone, who is following this election, in particular through the analysis of the social media content, such type of images of a misogynist content have stoppedcirculating after the said debate, which is another positive aspect.

Labour is starting replacing its fetish poster of Marlene Farrugia with one which is more political in content. At least, Labour has realized that whoever is behind these campaign caricatures must not only be dim-wittedbut does no good to its cause. On the contrary, it has ended up sending out confusing messages.

Let us hope that our politiciansmature though it seems that we still have a long way to go. Demographic statistics clearly show that Malta’s political future will be in the hands of women. Not only is it a fact that the participation of women in politics is increasing from one to the next election, but in twenty-years’ time the majority of our politicians are going to be women. Perhaps, this could create envy and fear. Nonetheless, ironically, this has been overtly manifested from a quarter least expected; the Labour Party.

In this case, Marlene Farrugia is a pioneer, not because she is one of the rare female persons in Maltese politics to have had the gutsto start her own party, but for giving it her best shot.