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Off-the-shoulder dress 'selling fast' after Labour MP Tracy Brabin called 'slapper' for wearing outfit in parliament

‘There’s more going on in parliament than my shoulder,’ politician states

Wednesday 05 February 2020 13:49 GMT

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Labour MP criticised for attire worn in the House of Commons

A black, off-the-shoulder, pleated dress is “selling fast” on Asos following the “sexist” criticism a Labour MP faced for her choice of clothing.

On Tuesday, politician Tracy Brabin received several insulting remarks on social media after she spoke in the House of Commons wearing a black dress that exposed her right shoulder.

After one person tweeted: “Is this really appropriate attire for parliament?”, other people responded with an array of vitriolic comments, including one that said: “Looks like she was banged over the wheelie bin at the back of the pub last night.”

Brabin delivered a viral response, stating: “Sorry I don’t have time to reply to all of you commenting on this but I can confirm I’m not....A slag, Hungover, A tart, About to breastfeed, A slapper, Drunk, Just been banged over a wheelie bin. Who knew people could get so emotional over a shoulder...”

Since then, it has been spotted that the dress she wore in parliament, which retails at £35 on Asos, is “selling fast” on the online retailer’s website.

Brabin’s tweet about her dress garnered more than 89,000 likes, almost 9,000 retweets and thousands of comments, some of which were critical and others that were supportive.

“If I had a quid for every time someone had commented on what I wore rather than what I said... This rarely happens to men – calling it out is the only way to educate,” one person tweeted.

“Absolutely disgraceful that you’ve been put in a position to debate your clothes and shut down trolling,” another wrote.

“This is everyday sexism at its worst and it needs to stop.”

£35 black pleated shoulder pencil dress (Asos)

On Wednesday, the MP for Batley and Spen spoke on ITV’s Lorraine about the situation, describing it as “extraordinary”.

“There is a really important question to the government about transparency and civil servants potentially breaking their code of integrity, and all people are talking about is the shoulder. So, I thought it was important I pushed back against that,” she said.

“Also, it’s a privilege I have that I have the confidence to brush it off, given my role, and I thought it was really important I replied because lots of women around the country, around the world, don’t have that opportunity to push back against those people that patronise them.”

Brabin continued, describing the incident as an example of “everyday sexism”.

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

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1/12The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Anne Hathaway

The 32-year-old actress said she has already experiences job rejections because of her age. “Now I'm in my early thirties and I'm like, 'Why did that 24-year-old get that part? I was that 24-year-old once. I can't be upset about it, it's the way things are,” she told Glamour.

EPA

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Helen Mirren

On news that Maggie Gyllenhaal had been turned down for being ‘too old’, aged 37, to play a 55-year-old man’s partner: “It’s f***ing outrageous. It’s ridiculous. Honestly, it’s so annoying. And ’twas ever thus. We all watched James Bond as he got more and more geriatric, and his girlfriends got younger and younger. It’s so annoying.”

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Gyllenhaal revealed she was told by a Hollywood producer that she was too old, aged 37, to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man. “It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made feel angry, and then it made me laugh,” she said at the time.

Getty Images

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep has helped fund an all-female screenwriters group called The Writer’s Lab to encourage more women to pen Hollywood scripts. She previously told Vogue in 2011: “Once women pass childbearing age they could only be seen as grotesque on some level.”

Getty

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Emma Thompson

The actress said she thought Hollywood is “still completely s***” when it comes to treating women equally to men. ““When I was younger, I really did think we were on our way to a better world. And when I look at it now, it is in a worse state than I have known it, particularly for women, and I find that very disturbing and sad.”

EPA

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Elizabeth Banks

Banks said she was driven from acting to directing due to the lack of roles for older women in Hollywood. “"[Industry sexism] drove me to direct for sure. I definitely was feeling that I was unfulfilled and a little bit bored by the things that were coming across my desk. I mean look at Gwyneth Paltrow who has her Oscar [for Shakespeare in Love] and played fifth banana to Iron Man,” she told Deadline.

PA

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Viola Davis

“I had never seen a 49-year-old, dark-skinned woman who is not a size 2 be a sexualised role in TV or film. I'm a sexual woman, but nothing in my career has ever identified me as a sexualised woman. I was the prototype of the ‘mommified’ role,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Liv Tyler

The Lord of the Rings actress said she only get cast in roles where she is treated as a “second class citizen” at the age of 38. “When you’re in your teens or twenties, there is an abundance of ingenue parts which are exciting to play. But at [my age], you’re usually the wife or the girlfriend - a sort of second-class citizen. There are more interesting roles for women when they get a bit older,” she told More magazine.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Cate Blanchett

The actress famously called out sexism on the red carpet at the 2014 Screen Actors Guild Awards. When a camera operator scanned her up and down, she said: “Do you do this to the guys?” In her Oscar acceptance speech for Blue Jasmine, she reminded the film industry that movies with leading women can still be successful. “And thank you to... those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women at the centre, are niche experiences. They are not -- audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.”

Gareth Cattermole/Getty

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Ellen Page

Asked if she had ever encountered sexism in Hollywood, Page told The Guardian: ‘Oh my God, yeah! It's constant! It's how you're treated, it's how you're looked at, how you're expected to look in a photoshoot, it's how you're expected to shut up and not have an opinion, it's how you... If you're a girl and you don't fit the very specific vision of what a girl should be, which is always from a man's perspective, then you're a little bit at a loss.”

Getty Images

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Zoe Saldana

The actress says she refuses roles where she has to play the generic girlfriend, wife or sexy bombshell. "It's very hard being a woman in a man's world, and I recognised it was a man's world even when I was a kid. It's an inequality and injustice that drove me crazy, and which I always spoke out against — and I've always been outspoken,” she told Manhattan magazine.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Charlize Theron

The actress spoke to ELLE about negotiating equal pay for the Snow White and the Huntsman sequel: "This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you're doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way."

Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

“I’ve been trying to call it out, that there’s more going on in parliament than my shoulder” the politician stated.

“There’s loads to discuss and I know if it was my predecessor, Tom Watson, nobody would be talking about the colour of his tie.”

Brabin had been speaking about Downing Street’s decision to order senior journalists from some of the UK’s major news organisations to leave a briefing while wearing the black, off-the-shoulder dress in the House of Commons.

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