Communications, Media & Gender

Mainstream media and the communications sector are still largely male-dominated in management, ownership and representation. Women hold only 3 percent of leadership positions in the sector. And despite the parity of female and male graduates from journalism schools in the U.S., women reporters on average make $9,000 less per year than their male cohorts. New media and the internet are offering new opportunities for women’s involvement, with an estimated 7.3 million more women online than men and 23 million women who use blogs, including the emerging “momosphere,” or moms who blog. A vibrant feminist media is building alliances to combat sexism and amplify voices and critical viewpoints. Initiatives from our network, such as SheSource and the Women’s Media Center, are aiming to address the absence of women as experts and opinion leaders in the public sphere.

February's Sunday Show Interview Tally: 52 Men, 4 Women

Teaser:

During a month when the issues of birth control and women's access to health care flared up and became major topics of debate on the presidential campaign trail and in Washington, the Sunday morning talk shows once again loaded up their programs by hosting newsmaker interviews with men. Lots and lots of men.

Editorial:

From Media Matters for America:

This past Sunday, for instance, NBC's Meet the Press, CBS's Face The Nation, ABC's This Week, Fox News Sunday and CNN's State of The Union hosted 16 interview subjects, 14 of which were with men. That imbalance has been consistent throughout the month. A total of 56 guests were booked on the Sunday programs to discuss national affairs in February. Of those, 52 were men. (The newsmaker tally does not include guests invited to participate in roundtable discussions this month.)

And of the four women booked this month, just one, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was associated with the Democratic Party, despite the fact Democrats currently control the White House and the Senate. "We complain about this all the time," a Democratic aide told Media Matters.

And yes, the paucity of female guests this month was especially odd considering the controversy that erupted regarding the administration's plan to require religious institutions to offer contraception as part of their health care plan for employees. The Sunday programs discussed that story with 24 of their newsmaker guests, only two of whom were women -- former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and former GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. (The topic was also covered in several roundtable discussion, which did include more female participants.)

[...]

Source:

Media Matters for America

URL:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201202280004

Date:

February 29, 2012

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They’re, Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve

Teaser:

From Valley Girls to the Kardashians, young women have long been mocked for the way they talk.

Editorial:

From The New York Times:

Whether it be uptalk (pronouncing statements as if they were questions? Like this?), creating slang words like “bitchin’ ” and “ridic,” or the incessant use of “like” as a conversation filler, vocal trends associated with young women are often seen as markers of immaturity or even stupidity.

Right?

But linguists — many of whom once promoted theories consistent with that attitude — now say such thinking is outmoded. Girls and women in their teens and 20s deserve credit for pioneering vocal trends and popular slang, they say, adding that young women use these embellishments in much more sophisticated ways than people tend to realize.

[...]

Source:

The New York Times

URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/science/young-women-often-trendsetters-in-vocal-patterns.html

Date:

February 28, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

Privacy management on social media sites

Submitted by asklar on Tue, 02/28/2012 - 11:29am

Social network users are becoming more active in pruning and managing their accounts. Women and younger users tend to unfriend more than others.

About two-thirds of internet users use social networking sites (SNS) and all the major metrics for profile management are up, compared to 2009: 63% of them have deleted people from their “friends” lists, up from 56% in 2009; 44% have deleted comments made by others on their profile; and 37% have removed their names from photos that were tagged to identify them.

Some 67% of women who maintain a profile say they have deleted people from their network, compared with 58% of men. Likewise, young adults are more active unfrienders when compared with older users.

A majority of social network site users – 58% – restrict access to their profiles and women are significantly more likely to choose private settings.

URL:

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Privacy-management-on-social-media/Summary-of-findings.aspx

The Oscars’ woman problem

Teaser:

Despite Kathryn Bigelow and the "Bridesmaids'" breakthrough, the Oscars are still dominated by men. What gives?

Editorial:

From Salon.com:

Hollywood has long had a problem with women, but with Kathryn Bigelow’s historic best director Oscar in 2010 for “The Hurt Locker,” it looked like things might be slowly changing. And in 2011, the box-office success of “Bridesmaids,” a raunchy comedy written by and starring women, led to predictions that Hollywood was finally ready to recognize the reality that female-centric movies could be as profitable as man-centric movies. While no industry that employs Michael Bay can really be considered a safe space, more women in production positions might mean better depictions of women, more roles for older actresses, and more influence at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that awards the Oscars.

That may end up being the case years down the line. But judging from the available evidence, it’s not going to happen any time soon. Bigelow’s movie was released in 2009, but in 2011, only 5 percent of the top-grossing movies were directed by women. And, astoundingly, the Oscars are even worse. None — zero — of the films in the best picture, best director, best adapted or original screenplay, best lead or supporting actor, and best supporting actress categories were directed by women. In the major categories, 98 percent of nominations went to movies directed by men, 84 percent went to movies written by men, and 70 percent went to movies starring men. The only female-centered movies that appear outside the best actress categories are “The Help” and “Bridesmaids.” In the best picture category, there are as many movies about women as there are movies about horses.

Getting beyond basic cast-and-crew details, Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist pop culture media critic and the editor of Feminist Frequency, hasproduced a video putting the 2012 best picture nominees to the so-called Bechdel test. This looks at whether a film has, at any point, female characters having an interaction with each other that’s not about a male character. Only two of the 10 pass. While it’s possible for male directors and writers to produce representative depictions of women (as Manohla Dargis said in a 2009 interview, “Flaubert wrote ‘Madame Bovary.’ That’s all we need to say about that”), they mostly don’t. Female characters aren’t given anything to do besides pine about their (heterosexual) romantic interests.

[...]

Source:

Salon.com

URL:

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/25/the_oscars_woman_problem/singleton/

Date:

February 28, 2012

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Au Revoir ‘Mademoiselle’

Teaser:

Farewell to lovesick maidens and damsels in distress. Farewell to discrimination and sexism — well, at least on French forms.

Editorial:

From ABC News:

French Prime Minister François Fillon ordered Tuesday that the term “mademoiselle” be removed from all official forms and registries after months of campaigning by two feminist organizations, Osez le Féminisme (Dare to be feminist) and Les Chiennes de Garde (The Watchdogs).

The decision marks a great victory for French feminists who say the use of “mademoiselle” is demeaning to women, insisting that their marital status need not be known every time they sign a form. Men in France are referred to as “monsieur” regardless of marital status.

[...]

Source:

ABC News

URL:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/02/au-revoir-mademoiselle/

Date:

February 24, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

Oscar voters overwhelmingly white, male

Teaser:

An L.A. Times study of Oscar voters finds that their demographics are much less diverse than the moviegoing public. Academy leaders say they want to diversify.

Editorial:

From the Los Angeles Times:

About 37 million people tuned in to the Academy Awards last year, and a great deal rides on the show's outcome. Winning a golden statuette can vault an actor to stardom, add millions to a movie's box office and boost a studio's prestige. Yet the roster of all 5,765 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a closely guarded secret.

Even inside the movie industry, intense speculation surrounds the academy's composition and how that influences who gets nominated for and wins Oscars. The organization does not publish a membership list.

"I have to tell you," said academy member Viola Davis, nominated for lead actress this year for "The Help." "I don't even know who is a member of the academy."

A Los Angeles Times study found that academy voters are markedly less diverse than the moviegoing public, and even more monolithic than many in the film industry may suspect. Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%.

Oscar voters have a median age of 62, the study showed. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.

[...]

Source:

Los Angeles Times

URL:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-html,0,6763063.htmlstory

Date:

February 22, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2012

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 02/17/2012 - 11:05am

There is a crisis of representation in the media. We live in a racially and ethnically diverse nation that is 51% female, but the news media itself remains staggeringly limited to a single demographic.

The media is the single most powerful tool at our disposal; it has the power to educate, effect social change, and determine the political policies and elections that shape our lives. Our work in diversifying the media landscape is critical to the health of our culture and democracy.

Consider the Following Statistics

According to the Global Media Monitoring Project 2010, 24% of the people interviewed, heard, seen, or read about in mainstream broadcast and print news were female. Only 13% of stories focused specifically on women and 6% on issues of gender equality or inequality.

URL:

http://www.womensmediacenter.com/pages/the-problem

Remembering the Women During Black History Month

Submitted by asklar on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 11:42am

Selection of posts from the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation Young Women Misbehavin blog.

URL:

http://youngwomenmisbehavin.com/category/black-history-month/

Fox News 'course correction' rankles some

Teaser:

Lately, Fox has increasingly promoted its straight-news talent in the press and conducted some of the toughest interviews and debates of the Republican primary season. Just last week, it hired the openly gay liberal activist Sally Kohn as a contributor.

Editorial:

From Politico:

All along, Fox watchers warned that it risked alienating conservative true believers as it inched toward the center.

Well, consider them alienated.

“To tell you the truth, a lot of conservatives see Fox News as being somewhat skewed on certain issues,” said Patrick Brown, who runs Internet marketing for The Western Center for Journalism, a conservative nonprofit that features stories questioning the president’s eligibility for office. “We actually did a poll recently that said, ‘Is Fox News actually conservative, or has it moved left?’ And some 70 percent of our readers thought it had moved left.”

“Left” is, of course, a relative term.

A casual Fox viewer might barely notice the changes since the network remains critical of the Obama administration and reliably conservative opinion voices, like Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, still anchor key spots in the Fox firmament. But the changes are there.

[...]

Source:

Politico

URL:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72825.html

Date:

February 15, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Romance & Real Estate: How Your Housing Situation Affects Your Love Life

Teaser:

Where you live affects who you date—and who will absolutely refuse to date you. In honor of Valentine’s Day, the real estate website Trulia commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct a survey looking at the intersection of attitudes about housing and romance. Are homeowners regarded as “marriage material” more so than noncommital renters? Are people more interested in potential mates if they live alone? Just how bad is your love life impacted if you live with your parents? When it comes to dating and housing, what’s hot and what’s not?

Editorial:

From Time:

While owning a home has always been a part of the traditional American Dream, it’s apparently not a deal breaker (or maker) when it comes to dating. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of unmarried U.S. adults said that homeowners had no significant “home advantage” in terms of attracting dates. Only 28% of those surveyed said they’d prefer someone who owned a home. So you can’t really use the fact that you’re a renter as an excuse for why you can’t find a date. Well, perhaps guys can use that more as an excuse than the ladies: While just 19% of men say that they have a preference for dating homeowners, 36% of women prefer dates who own property.
[...]

Source:

Time

URL:

http://moneyland.time.com/2012/02/14/romance-real-estate-how-your-housing-situation-affects-your-love-life/

Date:

February 14, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

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NCRW is a network of leading university and community based research, policy, and advocacy centers with a growing global reach dedicated to advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls. We also have a Corporate Circle comprised of senior diversity professionals from leading U.S. and global member companies and a Presidents Circle of college and university leaders who share our commitment. NCRW harnesses the collective power of its network to provide knowledge, analysis, and thought leadership on issues ranging from reducing women’s poverty to building a critical mass of women’s leadership across sectors.

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