Two months into my career as a female motoring journalist, I can say that every day has been an eye-opening experience. I’ve still a lot to catch up on compared to some of the more ‘veteran’ journalists and I’ve yet to learn how to do a ‘drift’ but small matter, I’ll probably get the hang of things in due time.
     Anyhow, there’s one thing that’s been bugging me all this while and that is the presence of those skimpily dressed exhibition girls car companies just love to have at their functions.
     Their reason for just being never fails to mystify me. Are the cars not appealing enough to sell based on their looks alone? I think the new Mitsubishi Lancer looks absolutely spanking - in the ads, in the showroom, on the road - with nary a busty, leggy girl in sight within a two-metre radius.
     Take for example a two-day test drive I attended to earlier this month. Those beastly things weren’t around when we flagged off for the journey but surprise, surprise, I saw two of them evil twin sisters once we reached the destination.
     OK, fine. Perhaps some of us would not have been able to located the conference room for the media brief until we caught sight of the two posing prettily outside the room’s double doors. So I grudgingly accept that they may have some use after all.
     But they stuck around for dinner. Fine, I surmise. Stick insects need to eat, too.
     Then we sort of had the whole boring night to ourselves so a bunch of us just hung out at the hotel’s bistro. The girls were there too and it was all ready close to midnight.
     At that point, I was like, “Dudes. Don’t you people have homes to return to?”
     The next day, I was more than a little annoyed when I found out that they trailed along to our off-road driving session. At one point, we stopped at a mangrove area for a photo op. Only a few clueless souls took photos of the girls posing against the cars.
     I just thought the whole thing was just plain idiotic. Seriously, you must be an idiot if you thought that having girls dressed in skin-tight dresses and heels posing against a car against a MANGROVE backdrop would look cool. It’s wrong, OK. Girls with scary eye-makeup shouldn’t even be posing for photos in a ruggedly beautiful nature environment.
     Being a woman with intelligence and dignity, I find the presence of these creatures an insulting slap in the face each time I encounter them during media-related functions.
     I mean, why do we need these hussies to pose with a bunch of inanimate objects - cars, printers, washing machines, etc. Do they really up the coolness factor of the products a so-and-so company wants to sell?
     We talk of putting a halt to female exploitation and the use of sex objects, oops, appeal, to sell products to the average consumer. How is that going to stop if we keep on featuring Little Miss Oops My Panties Are Showing Because My Mini-mini Skirt is Too Mini at our product launches, media gatherings, media briefings, whatever?
     Some sexist rats tell me that they exist to give the male media dudes a little ‘extra’ viewing pleasure. Viewing pleasure, my foot. What about dishing out some male eye-candy for female journalists like me then?