She is no
autocutie. Within weeks of starting at GMB - the show which succeeded Daybreak - last April, Charlotte was a hit with viewers.
Of course I'd like to think that appearance means nothing to the BBC recruitment team and that the One Show is a triumph of substance over style, of journalistic talent over
autocutie prettiness.
The girl geezer bar none, the ladette with muscle (usually in the form of an 18 stone athlete), she's the shooting star who's gone from weather girl to
autocutie presenter in one meteorological leap.
So a stunning victory for ageism and three hearty cheers to the Beeb bosses for finally accepting that you don't necessarily need to be male or an
autocutie to read the news?
http://bit .ly/98USUA Sky's
autocutie takes one for the team during touchline reporting duties.
The mum of eight, who is the cover girl on this week's Woman's Way, said she has never considered herself to be an "
autocutie".
If the problem that older women must traverse is that their ageing looks take precedence over their knowledge and experience, then for younger women the inverse is true--they must struggle in the face of youth or 'good looks' to prove their intellectual and professional worth or be dismissed, in another acutely gendered and disparaging turn of phrase, as mere '
autocuties'.
Both were derided as mere "
autocuties" who had been hired more for their beauty than brains.
One minute they're ridiculing women in TV news for being "
autocuties" who just sit in the studio reading the autocue.
It's clearly not a one-off as the experience of Moira Stuart and Selina Scott prove, as do the barbed comments of former BBC reporter Martin Bell about their preference for "
autocuties".
What Liz and all the It Girls,
autocuties and pretenders to the throne of stardom fail to realise is that many are called and few are chosen.
Pitied by security guards, patronised by studio
autocuties, they are blankeyed, slack jawed, husks of humanity.