In releasing our candidate gender paper yesterday, Amy King and I wrote in the press release:
In a federal electorate with 100,000 voters, this means that a woman running for office would receive 600 fewer votes than a man representing the same political party
A journalist from AAP called me yesterday with some confusion. She pointed out that parties never run two candidates in the same electorate. What did I mean?
In a rather stumbling answer I eventually got around to saying that we were referring to a hypothetical, or a thought experiment. But not before I’d said something that was apparently more newsworthy. Here’s how AAP reported it.
“If Malcolm Turnbull (the Member for Wentworth) was in a dress then he would receive 600 fewer votes,” Dr Leigh said.
Andrew Leigh's Archived Blog 2004-2010 
That’s not true at all. Not only might people vote for him to wear a dress, they might pay money to see him do so. 🙂 That is a very funny comment.
In response to Sinkers, that does seem to explain why Dolly Downer with his fishnet stockings gets re-elected. Voters are certainly not evaluating him on his intellect or performance.
And we wonder why politicians somehow struggle to get a message across through the media. 🙂
amusing. when i came here in the 70’s, ozzies were humble, but frank: “we have a cultural cringe, ‘cuz we’re backward.”
now the cringe is gone, but the cause remains. progress is wonderful.
Trust a journalist… sure can!