News anchor takes stand against sexism with suit experiment

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Tuesday, November 18, 2014
News anchor takes stand against sexism with suit experiment
A news anchor in Australia took a stand against sexism in an unusual way -- he wore the same suit on-air for a full year.

A news anchor in Australia is getting a lot of attention after taking a stand against sexism. And he did it in an unusual way -- by wearing the same exact suit on-air for a full year.

Angered by the criticism his female co-anchors received from viewers about their outfits, Karl Stefanovic decided to conduct an experiment and wear the same blue suit and white shirt, only changing his tie, every day for a year on Channel Nine's "Today" program. He says these criticisms can often be harsh and wanted to demonstrate that it's not the same way for men.

He says not a single audience member asked about it and no one noticed until he went public with his hidden-in-plain-sight experiment.

"I'm judged on my interviews, my appalling sense of humor - on how I do my job, basically. Whereas women are quite often judged on what they're wearing or how their hair is," Stefanovic said.

His co-anchor, Lisa Wilkinson, for example wears a different outfit every day of the week and often gets hate mail from viewers telling her to "get some style."

The Age newspaper says he's still wearing the same blue suit, and only Wilkinson and another "Today" colleague knew about his experiment.

"They often remark that it's getting a bit stinky," he said in the paper's weekend edition. "I'm hoping to get it into the dry cleaners at the end of the year."

The news anchor says he did it to make a point, noting that women are more harshly criticized for what they do, say, and wear.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.