Guardian article by Kira Cochrane, discussing the lack of prominent women in the media. Great stats from her "content analysis". To quote one of my students: "You'd think women have got it much better these days, but they haven't have they?"
Quite.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/04/why-british-public-life-dominated-men
And here's a Media Talk podcast which features Kira Cochrane and Maggie Brown discussing the article's findings. Listen:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/audio/2011/dec/09/media-talk-podcast-women-in-the-media?INTCMP=SRCH
I find it interesting looking at the representation of women on Sky Sports, and they do play a prominent role on the Sky Sports News panel with the likes of Georgie Thompson (until recently) and Charlotte Jackson, so women do seem to play a prominent role in sport news. However in the football or any male leaning sport you don't tend to have women commentators which i find interesting, it may just be that it isn't a job that they want to do, but looking at the treatment of the first woman lines-lady by Andy Gray and Richard Key, I'm not surprised that women avoid getting involved in male leaning sports. This may have nothing to do with the blog, but it is something that interests me.
ReplyDeleteIt's got everything to do with the blog Ben - don't be apologetic. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteThe rise in telegenic female faces in sports broadcasting *is* an interesting area to think about. You are right, though, that women only really feature in front of camera looking conventionally attractive and sexy.
I don't watch Sky Sports News so I Google-imaged the two women who you mention and was not at all surprised at what they look like (or indeed the way they are dressed/posed in some of the images taken from - ahem - "male lifestyle" magazines like FHM and GQ).
It's nothing new though is it? Look at the scantily clad women that parade around the ring at the start of rounds of boxing, or American football cheerleaders. There is an assumption that men like to look at pretty women while they consume their (usually male dominated) sport. It reduces women to the level of the sport itself - something that feeds a male desire (any coincidence that the Sunday - and the Daily - Sport newspaper was basically all about football and breasts?).
I was watching the South Africa v Sri Lanka test match yesterday and during the many lulls in the game, the camera picked out women in bikinis in the crowd, shamelessly. One of the South African commentators said "Ooh! She's well trained!" when the camera followed a woman in a bikini carrying a large jug of beer - the obvious assumption being that she was carrying it for a man (not for herself) and that what a man really wants in a woman is someone who looks great, is happy to go the cricket and fetch beer all day for him. And that women do not do this naturally but need to TRAINED by a man WELL.
So, yes, it *is* interesting to see women getting a higher profile in sports broadcasting, but we have to ask what roles are they fulfilling? Are they merely eye-candy for the male viewers or are they respected for their knowledge and expertise in the sporting/broadcasting field? We know the answer to that one. And as for why women generally do not feature as commentators - the answer is obviously "what use could a man possibly have for a woman he cannot see in a sports programme?"
Doesn't surprise me that they both appear in FHM, you wouldn't see the male presenters in the female magazines. A lot of the male presenters on Sky Sports are middle aged male men presenting whereas you don't see any women that would be classed as "older", i watch Sky Sports News everyday, and this never crossed my mind, who actually presents it, and thinking about it, it is frequent throughout the years that i have been watching Sky Sports News. I can't remember which TV show it was, but I think an older judge was replaced by a younger judge on one of the dancing shows I think, further evidence that TV shows are going after eye candy women to present their shows.
ReplyDeleteSpot on again, Ben. It was the uber-experienced choreographer Arlene Phillips - given the push from Strictly Come Dancing so they could squeeze ex-winner, dance novice and "all round babe" (sic) Alesha Dixon onto the judging panel. None of the middle aged men on the panel seemed under threat. Pah!
ReplyDeleteIncidentally (and off-topic) my Firefox spellchecker suggested that instead of "uber-experienced" above, I may have actually meant "tuber-experienced". Like that's a proper word and mine wasn't!
It's an interesting debate, would make quite an interesting TV programme. I see she has now left Strictly for Britains Got Talent as well.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of the word tuber-experienced and google define gave me no answer either, so i don't think it actually exists!
Could i raise the point of maybe it is the best person for the job? I'm not saying men are better than women, its not just about gender to get jobs within the media. You need experience,you need to have a decent level of intellect, influencial contacts within the industry, personality also comes into consideration. It's predominantly male because of experience, male news readers and presenters have been round since the birth of television.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately in this decade and the past decade, women have emerged not as news readers as such but eye candy. This has been furthermore exploited by the infamous politically 'neutral' broadcasting company; Sky. The majority of the women are blonde (either natural or artificial), which itself is a stereotype about the 'ideal' women set out by the beauty industry.
I think as time goes by the ratio between men and women will even out.
Alex: I would dearly love to believe that the media is as meritocratic as you suggest, but you cannot be seriously suggesting that men have more "decent level of intellect" than women, can you? Or that men are represented more in serious news media because they have better "personality"? "Influential contacts" may be nearer the mark - explaining why the media is such a boys' club. Men employing/promoting other men ad infinitum.
ReplyDeleteYour suggestion that women have "emerged as eye candy" seems to suggest that it was somehow a natural development or happened by chance or even that women have plumped for the "eye candy" positions rather than the more powerful/serious ones. Surely it is the male domination of the media that has forced women into the eye candy role by a) catering for an audience that is identified as predominantly male and b) limiting the opportunities women have to feature in any other capacity.
Are you being ironic when you suggest Sky/News Corp is "politically neutral"?
Do you really think that over time things will simply even out? Isn't the situation actually getting worse?
I'm not saying men have a higher level of intellect, i'm saying part of the selection process must contain some way of testing intellect and their understanding. Personality plays a big part in it as well but i agree with you that the 'job for the boys' dwarfs all these. The whole promotion on merit has been thrown out the window, it's who you know not what you know. The eye candy has been put in place as a way of keeping news interesting especially for men and you could go as far as saying that it s a tool to restrict women's opportunities. This could also be a subliminal way of telling women what to look like and what men should look out for.
ReplyDeleteI was being ironic about sky and news corp for that matter because industry practice suggests that broadcasting companies must be political impartial. Sky on the other hand openly insults politicians and across the pond it is almost acting unofficially as the republican propaganda machine.
I think that there will be another wave of feminism in the near future which will hopefully balance the ratio out. I don't think you can't expect it to be completely balance but close enough to see some kind of balance.
OK. You've just about saved your bacon there Alex :)
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I managed to find this article just now, and after Ms. Cunniffe's lesson on the prominant directors, I couldn't actually name any female directors, and this seemed to back up that fact: http://www.nme.com/filmandtv/news/number-of-female-directors-in-hollywood-has-halved/258221
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