Equal society? Equal media first

For a nation so affected by our media, it's incongruous that at the same time we are so distanced from the gender inequities that plague our infrastructure. Not only are women underrepresented or portrayed with bias in the media and communications world, they are also largely absent from its production. Women are missing in positions such as news anchors or investigative journalists, and they're also glaringly unavailable in the editing suites and control rooms. The media reflects so much of society while perpetuating its endemic myths and stereotypes. True gender equality and social change must first occur within the media. News directors and the people making the majority of reporting, editing and directing decisions in the newsrooms are men. At the major TV networks in 2004, women correspondents reported just 25percent of news stories. Less than a quarter of TV newsrooms are managed by women, and fewer than 10 percent of board members for major communication corporations are female. On an average Sunday morning talk show aired by any of the five major companies: CBS, FOX, MSNBC, ABC or CNN, only one in nine guests is a woman. Oftentimes, when women are represented in the media, they are overwhelmingly white. The American Society of Newspaper Editors estimates just 13 percent of journalists at newspapers are minorities (including Latinos). In prime-time television, only 23 percent of women are of color. When these inequities exist, voices are consistently marginalized. The media is not only responsible for how and what we take in as news–it is also largely responsible for what we watch on TV, the movies we see in the theaters and the daily onslaught of advertisements (up to 3000 per day). These images become so subliminal that we hardly realize what is happening. In television programs, whether soap operas or reality TV shows, women represent only 39 percent of all characters. And when they are represented, there is a common theme of sex and suggestive body language that defines their characters. If women played a more vital role in crucial decision-making, there would be a more balanced and non-stereotypical portrayal of women in television. According to Media Report To Women, a watchdog group focused on the presence of women in the media, "women in Congress received fewer total newspaper articles, fewer mentions in front-page, national, foreign, metro, business and sports articles, fewer issue-based articles and fewer mentions and quotes in newspaper articles than their male counterparts." Our current media situation is such that CNN will devote an entire night's worth of coverage on the fire that claimed Suzanne Somers' Malibu home, yet they are comfortably plagued by silence when it comes to reporting on the women killed in the bombing of a Somalian village the same day. So much time is spent by media discussing the mounting struggle that certain celebrities have with anorexia, yet fails to produce investigative reports on the lack of adequate health care for single mothers. If women maintained an active and loud voice in the media and communication world today, these stories would be told. These statistics and evaluations may not come as a surprise to those paying attention, yet there is so much that can be done to change the way women are represented in the media. The first and most important step is to become aware of how much media affects women, and at the same time denies them their necessary and inalienable voices. Look around. Scrutinize the advertisements being thrown at you. Study the way women are portrayed on television, on the covers of magazines and in blockbuster hits. Although gender disparities are glaringly obvious in the corporate media world, these problems plague the realms of independent media as well. Get involved. For any woman pursuing a career in media or journalism, independent or corporate, it is her voice that will give a voice to women all over the world and the power to promote social change. Demand that women be subjects and sources for news and events taking place on local, national and global levels. Work within the media outlets in your area to ensure a strong and present female voice. Remember that women's issues are not limited to abortion rights and equal representation in the workplace. Everything– from global warming to prison reform to secret signing statements and the minimum wage–affects women. Yet without the proper representation in print, on the web, on the airwaves and in front of and behind the camera, these issues will continue to retain a strong male-centered stance and the egregious inequalities will remain. Jane Fonda is one of the founders of the Women's Media Center, a comprehensive resource for women-centered news and community organizing. In her speech at the National Conference for Media Reform last month in Memphis, TN, Fonda said, "The opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy, but democracy." For there to be a true women's movement, an all-inclusive amalgamation of feminism, abortion rights, gay rights, international solidarity, social equality and every other cause for which women have historically continued to fight, there must first be a rise in the presence of women in the media.