Bono and Wonder Woman: When honouring women becomes a joke

The UN recently appointed their Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls.

And she’s a comic book character.

Albeit a bad-ass, take no sh*t gal with hair so wondrous you want to reach out and touch it, but a fictional character none the less.

With Emma Watson acting as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, Charlize Theron as Messenger of Peace and countless other women fighting for gender equality, the mind boggles as to how the good folk at the UN suddenly came to the conclusion that they’d been barking up the wrong tree all along.

“Ah, Ala Murabit and Charlize Theron are all well and good, but they’re just too damn real. Any objections to Wonder Woman?”

In one fell swoop, the UN suggested that of the millions of women performing admirable, worthwhile tasks on a daily basis, they’ll never quite measure up to a fictional character in hot pants and headband.

And in a maddening kind of way, the idea is so absurd, so toe-curlingly offensive, so close-your-eyes-and-count-to-ten insulting, you almost – almost – have to laugh.

It’s like trying to reason with a drunk person.

“But she’s not an actual woman.”

“What? She is. Woman’s even in her name FFS.”

“She’s not a living, breathing real-life woman, lads.”

“No, but she’s so wondrous she transcends actual real-life women. And isn’t that something all you ladies should aspire to?”

In that case, how long before we kick Ban Ki-moon out of the UN Secretary-General position and replace him with He-Man?

And if the idea that the United Nations didn’t think they could find ONE worthy ambassador among millions of real-life women isn’t crushing enough, a magazine aimed at the female population has this week nominated a man for its Women of the Year award.

That’s right, ladies. As well as being a multi-millionaire with a back catalogue of number ones, Bono also has this whole 'being a woman' thing nailed down too.

Well, according to Glamour magazine's annual awards, that is.

As news broke of Bono’s nomination, many assumed it was a publicity stunt to draw attention to the other more worthy nominees who include Olympic medallist, Simone Bails, and Nobel peace prize winner Nadia Murad.

And how dispiriting, how overwhelmingly disheartening if that is, indeed, the case?

Despite there being a Nobel Prize winner and Olympic medallist to herald,  there is a suggestion that the public need a man’s name in the headline if they’re going to pay a blind bit of attention to a ceremony that honours women.

Well sure look, if the ageing male rocker doesn’t pull in enough publicity this time around, we can always give Wonder Woman the nod next year.

Or, you know, the pink Power Ranger…