ARTICLE
Media sexism
R
eham Khan has lamented the manner in which
her recent divorce was treated by the media. With
journalists scrambling to reveal all the ‘skeletons
in her closet’ for primetime slots and snide judgements
being disguised as breaking news, one can certainly see
her point. Was the media guilty of a gender bias? Let’s
imagine the following scenario. There is a public figure,
perhaps a politician/philanthropist, who has a strong,
overly ambitious personality, and a penchant for living
life on his/her own terms. The person has led a turbulent
personal life, having been divorced twice, with children
from one of the failed marriages. Is this person more
likely to be portrayed as an attention-seeking gold-digger if a woman, but just your average politician if a man?
I leave that to your discretion. Hypotheticals aside, we
now have concrete data that describes the extent of disparity in the representation of men and women in the
news media. A just-released report by the Global Media
Monitoring Project has revealed that media sexism is a
serious, global problem. GMMP is the world’s largest
and longest-running research and advocacy initiative
for gender equality in and through the news media, a
project of the communications advocacy agency WACC,
with support from UN Women. The report, which gathered data from 114 countries, finds that women make up
only 24pc of the persons heard, read about or seen in
newspaper, television and radio news, exactly the same
level found in the 2010 report, showing that progress
towards gender parity in the news has “ground to a halt”.
Male reporters dominate the news world, with only 37pc
of stories in newspapers, television and radio newscasts
reported by women. This global glass ceiling on women reporters seems to have an impact on not only the
number of stories that focus on women, but also the extent to which gender inequality issues are raised in the
media and gender stereotypes perpetuated through the
media. For example, only 9pc of stories highlight gender inequality concerns. Moreover, the journalistic lens
in source selection is not only male-centric, but also focuses on a certain type of masculinity while selecting interviewees. In other words, male reporters tend to prefer
male sources, and politicians are the most sought after
category of interviewees, for everything from personal
testimonies to expert opinion. Women interviewees, on
7 | BOOM