Saint Nicholas might become Saint Nicola
Getting male claws off Santa Claus for the sake of gender correctness.
By ET Bureau | Updated:
iStock
Will the tubby gent with the red suit, white beard and his genial leitmotif of ‘Ho, ho, ho!’, who slides down chimneys to leave behind Yuletide gifts, be replaced by a lissom lass for the sake of equal opportunity and gender correctness? While such a thought might well make the nose of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer turn even more rubicund in disapproval, the idea has been mooted by a logo-creation company that is attempting to ‘modernise’ Christmas by making the festival more in keeping with today’s climate of political correctness.
With this laudable — laughable? — view in mind, the organisation polled some 4,000 people in the UK and the US, an exercise that reportedly resulted in 27% of the respondents voting for a female, or gender-neutral, Santa. While a significantly larger percentage dismissed the notion as ‘Ridiculous’, the idea of a remodelled Samantha Claus might well catch on, and a shopping complex in Auckland, New Zealand, is already displaying a ‘Santa’ in fishnet stockings who bears a resemblance to Mary Poppins.
After all, if a proposal has been mooted for a film featuring a woman James Bond — Jemima Bond? — who is licensed to thrill, why shouldn’t a similar dispensation be accorded to one traditionally licensed to chill? And purists who would pooh-pooh the suggestion might find themselves being charged with outdated Msogyny.
With this laudable — laughable? — view in mind, the organisation polled some 4,000 people in the UK and the US, an exercise that reportedly resulted in 27% of the respondents voting for a female, or gender-neutral, Santa. While a significantly larger percentage dismissed the notion as ‘Ridiculous’, the idea of a remodelled Samantha Claus might well catch on, and a shopping complex in Auckland, New Zealand, is already displaying a ‘Santa’ in fishnet stockings who bears a resemblance to Mary Poppins.
After all, if a proposal has been mooted for a film featuring a woman James Bond — Jemima Bond? — who is licensed to thrill, why shouldn’t a similar dispensation be accorded to one traditionally licensed to chill? And purists who would pooh-pooh the suggestion might find themselves being charged with outdated Msogyny.
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