Sexualising a woman is not accountability

The scandal around Clayton Bartolo came to a head last week when he was forced to resign following reports that his wife, Amanda Muscat, received tens of thousands of euros from a private firm in a suspected kickback related to an MTA contract. The insinuation here is that the money was destined for Bartolo himself, who was until last week, tourism minister.

The couple have been in the spotlight ever since the Standards Commissioner found that Bartolo and Gozo minister Clint Camilleri breached ethics by giving Muscat a lucrative consultancy job she was unqualified for.

The spotlight should be on them. Appointing an unqualified person to a government role simply because the person was at the time the minister’s girlfriend, is a clear-cut example of nepotism. It’s a violation of the principles that

uphold merit and fairness in public office. This should be the focus of our collective outrage.

However, it seems that most of the social media comments on the matter have been directed primarily towards Muscat, and have taken on a sexualising tone.

Amanda Muscat is a person of agency and should be criticised for her behaviour as a public official, accepting a sham promotion from her partner and possibly receiving kickbacks on his behalf. Criticisms on her looks, clothes, or sexuality have nothing to do with the matter.

Some may remark that, since Muscat received her sham promotion because she was the minister’s girlfriend at the time, then that puts her sex life up for scrutiny.

Let’s remember that no one scrutinised the sex life of Daniel Bogdanovic, who received a lucrative government contract while dating Justyne Caruana, when this story came to light in 2021.

No one should have scrutinised his sex life, or posted sexual images about him, because this is all beyond the issue at hand. The issue then, as it is now, was that a minister gifted their partner a government job they were unqualified for. The problem isn’t their sex life – the problem is nepotism.

Reducing this controversy to salacious gossip undermines serious conversations about the abuse of power in government. Worse, it reinforces a culture where women are scrutinised through a lens of sexism, regardless of their role in a controversy.

Over the years we have heard government scandals of women trading in influence, accepting sham consultancies, and awarding bogus contracts. Every time, the social media discourse gravitates towards the woman as a sexual object first, and a public official second.

When we comment on women in public life in this way, we are doing a disservice to ourselves. Instead of calling for accountability and transparency, we comment on her clothes, her appearance, her sexuality. We seem to be quicker to sexualise a woman in power than hold her accountable for her actions.

The point of this argument is not to detract from Muscat’s wrongdoings as a public official. In fact, it is because of her shameful behaviour while working in the civil service that we must rise above sexualising remarks and hold her accountable on a political level.

We do not hold women accountable by sexualising them. We hold women accountable in the same way we do men – accountability frameworks, independent oversight, legal mechanisms. We have a duty to scrutinise their actions as public officials but their looks, clothing and sexuality have nothing to do with their ability to lead, and mislead. 

Let us also not forget that the power balance in this situation. It is Clayton Bartolo, who held elected office at the time, who abused of his power and gifted his partner a sham consultancy package. Muscat is far from an innocent bystander, but Bartolo is the one who perpetuated the wrongdoing and abused the trust placed in him by voters.

We must focus on the structural issues at hand and resist the temptation to scapegoat or demean individuals based on their gender. True accountability requires us to keep our attention where it belongs – on those who wield and abuse power.

If we truly care about justice and integrity, we must hold the right people accountable without falling into the trap of misogyny. Anything less is a disservice to the values we claim to defend.