Daily Show host Jon Stewart gave Caitlyn Jenner a warm “welcome to being a woman in America” on Tuesday after he criticized the way the media has handled coverage of her appearance on Vanity Fair .
At first, it looked like Jon Stewart was going to focus on misuse of pronouns, the struggle of some media members to accept Caitlyn as a woman, or transphobia in general.
Instead, Jon Stewart took it as an opportunity to discuss all of the criticism on appearance and challenges of equality Caitlyn will face simply because she is now a woman.
“It’s really heartening to see that everyone is willing to not only accept Caitlyn Jenner as a woman, but to waste no time in treating her like a woman.”
After Jon Stewart made this comment, the show played a montage of different members of the media talking about how pretty, hot, or sexually appealing they believed Caitlyn is.
Many of them were even comparing her to other celebrities , which Jon Stewart noted also had a double standard.
“Look, we want to give a woman a compliment here. We just need to make sure another woman gets taken down a peg.”
Next, Jon Stewart commented on the fact that any successes in athletics or business that Caitlyn had achieved when she was Bruce Jenner would be ignored not because she is transgendered, but simply because she is now a woman subject to sexism.
“Caitlyn, when you were a man, we could talk about your athleticism, your business acumen, but now you’re a woman, which means your looks are really the only thing we care about.”
As if trying to get the members of the media to talk about anything other than a woman’s appearance was difficult enough, Jon Stewart also mentioned that a lot of the comments were discriminatory against Caitlyn’s age .
“Wow! Remind her she has an expiration date now! You came out at 65, and you’ve got another two years before you become invisible to society. Better make the most of it.”
Jenner has already talked about the new difficulty that Jon Stewart is talking about of constantly feeling like she has to keep up her appearance on a promo for her upcoming E! documentary series .
“You go through all this stuff, and you start learning the pressure that women are under all the time about their appearance.”
Jon Stewart called her transition “brave” and has been just one of many who have been accepting of her, including President Obama .
[Photo By Rick Kern / Getty Images]
