The BBC is Sexist? Panda Included in 2012 Female Faces of the Year

When choosing the 2012 Female Faces of the Year, the BBC was tasked with choosing a dozen women who impacted 2012. They were able to come up with 11 women with ease, but the twelfth, well, they decided to use a panda.

In the BBC’s defense, it was a female panda, but that isn’t stopping people from calling the network sexist.

Reuters reports that some of the anger is still lingering from accusations of sexism that were thrown at the corporation last week when it chose its Sports Athlete of the Year from a shot list compiled entirely of males. Putting Tian Tian, the female panda from the Edinburgh Zoo, on the Female Faces of the Year list is just adding insult to injury.

Former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said:

“So the BBC couldn’t find a woman for Sports Personality of the Year, but they could find a panda for a female face of 2011.”

But the BBC defended the inclusion of Tian Tian by saying that animals have been included in the list before.

“In 2009, Benson the Carp, a much-caught giant fish, was August’s entry on the male list and last year Peppa the Pig was on the female list for April.”

Tian Tian was only part of the reason that the list has been called sexist. The corporation was also criticized for choosing four woman based on their marriages. Pippa Middleton, who married Prince William, Charlene Wittstockwho, who married Prince Albert of Monaco, and the Duchess of Alba, 85, who married a civil servant.

Do you think the BBC’s Female Faces of the Year was insulting?