A study published in 2013 by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) revealed that, on average, only 30,4% of the managerial positions of the private and public media companies in European countries were taken by women. Moreover, according to the 2015 report provided by the Global Media Monitoring Report (GMMP), only 37% of the stories published in newspapers, television and radio were reported by female journalists and only 24% of the individuals in the stories published were women. Yep, there is still a loooot of work to be done. Gender equality in the media sector has still not been achieved.
Margaret Gallagher is a researcher and writer who has been investigating and educating about gender equality within the media for decades. She has worked in evaluation and development projects for various United Nations organizations and for a range of European Union institutions. She is also a member of the editorial boards of a series of publications, such as the academic journal Feminist Media Studies, and has published a long list of books on the topic of gender equality within the communication sector. As an expert on this issue, she talked to us about the implications of gender equality in the media and suggested some approaches that we can take towards a brighter future.
What does gender equality in the media mean?
There are two essential elements to it. On one hand, there is the employment side, where the aim is to achieve equal numbers of women and men in the various jobs in the communication sector and the places where decisions on what we read, see, hear, etc. are made. Then, another pillar to gender equality in the media is its content; which, as you can see, is connected to that first professional factor that I’ve talked about. We need to get to a place where a fairly even number of women’s voices and men’s voices are represented across the different types of media output. At the moment, when we look at these two aspects – employment and content – we find that equality has not been reached yet. There are some exceptions and in some regions things might be better than in others; but, generally speaking, the pattern is still that there are more men than women working in the sector and more men than women being fairly represented in the media content.
We often hear about the importance of gender equality in general. Yet, what is the relevance of gender equality in the media specifically?
I find it extraordinary that we don’t hear more about gender equality in the media! When you regard the amount of time that people spend with the media, reading newspapers, magazines, watching television, on social media, on the internet… we actually spend more time with the media than we do in the formal education system. It is well understood that education is crucial in terms of making sure that men and women have the same chances in life and that we are not discriminated by gender. If you think about it, media is a crucial portion of that educative process: it voices the issues that are considered to be important in the world and portrays images that many of us consciously and, sometimes also unconsciously, imitate. That’s why, knowing that media is such an influential socialization agent, it’s extraordinary that there isn’t more debate about the need for gender equality in the media.
The 2015 results of the GMMP reveal that women make up for 24% of the persons heard, read about or seen in newspaper, television and radio news. Those results are the same as in 2010. Although it may be too early to tell, these results raise concerns that we might find stagnation in the advance towards gender equality in the media. Do you think that, in the process towards that goal, we are ever at risk of reaching a plateau or even receding?
Yes, I do think that risk exists. As you said, it is the first time we do not see an improvement in this statistic since the GMMP report was first published in 1995 – up until the 2015 analysis, there had always been an increasing number of women in the news. It is of course really worrying and puzzling to not see progress in these results and it is difficult to know why there has been that slow down. I don’t think it has to do with the fact that fewer women are being employed in the media – on that parameter, statistics show that there has been progress and more women are being employed in the sector. Perhaps it has something to do with the increasing commercialization of the media sector in the world with a move away from public service broadcasters towards more advertisement based media. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to say with certainty what is happening by looking just at that specific result. In regard to your question, we should definitely be concerned about the possibility of seeing a slowdown in our progress. That’s why people should keep thinking and talking about gender equality in the media – it’s not something that happens on its own, we need to continue putting work towards it.
How is it possible that there is such a small number of women working in the media, especially on the top levels of the sector, when women make up for such a large portion (sometimes even the majority) of media studies graduates across Europe?
It goes back to the general employment context and the difficulty of women in most European countries of reconciling family life with work life. Although legislation has been introduced in the last years to make it easier for women and men to share parental responsibility, the expectation is still that women will be the ones to look after the family. If you pair this with the increasing precariousness of the sector, where the idea of long term contracts and professional stability is being less and less frequent, you might understand why many women drop out along the way and why the number of female employees decreases drastically in top level positions. Also, there is still a certain amount of indirect discrimination about the abilities of women to take directive seats. There is yet an old boys network and an idea that only men are tough enough to handle the higher positions. Having said that, although the glass ceiling persists to this day, we have seen that women are moving up the profession. It’s still a low statistic but it’s moving.
The policies that regulate the media sector are decided at these top level positions that contain such low numbers of female participation. Do you think that if these platforms are dominated by men we are at a higher risk of producing policies that could be biased against women’s interests?
I don’t think that just by having more women at the top everything is going to change for the better or that if we only have men it’s terrible – you know, there are many men out there who are concerned with gender equality and, in the same way, there are women who have not done much to help other women. I think it has to do more with basic rights: we need to see parity in the employment of men and women, not because it might make a difference in the content later produced by the media, but firstly because both women and men have the right to participate. On the other hand, it is true that we need a bigger mass of critical women in the different levels and occupations because this way they can support one another on their perspectives. In certain instances, it is true that to be the only woman in a large group of male decision makers makes it difficult to push an idea which might be counter to the way the majority of men think.
When we talk about gender equality in the media, a big topic is stereotypes. What stereotypes on gender have you encountered through your career and research and what are their implications?
Stereotypes change from culture to culture and they also evolve with time. For example, in Western European media a widespread stereotype a few decades ago was the image of the woman at home taking care of the family, which is a fairly restrictive sense of women’s potential. That has changed for the better and today we also see women outside the home and with other responsibilities. However, there have also been negative developments in the regard of stereotyping; for instance, a tendency towards commercialization of the media has led to the hypersexualizing of the female figure. Hence, content can change in positive and negative ways. The issue with stereotypes is that they pigeonhole women and men into certain roles and positions and limit their perception of their own potential. Also, stereotypes do not only work within what we see and hear in the media, but also what we don’t see and hear: not hearing women talking about certain topics or not seeing realistic female physiques (that last one leading to dangerous disorders on body-image). Therefore, we need to move towards less stereotypical content and demand a more diverse and representative image of women and men in the media.
When considering ways to regulate content in the media so that it becomes more gender sensitive, there often come allegations that taking such action would mean an offense against freedom of speech. How can we make policies to decrease offensive content and encourage gender sensitive content without violating freedom of expression?
The idea of clamping down on freedom of expression is, of course, unthinkable. What I believe we can do instead is institute a policy framework that provides a general atmosphere in which people understand that it is inadmissible to talk about certain groups in certain ways. Firstly, individuals must come to understand what sexism is and how it works. They have to have data and study results available and analyze the different ways in which discrimination can take form. We also should encourage projects to educate media employees specifically, in order to understand the explicit but also undercover ways in which their work can be encouraging sexism. Thus, it is not about clamping down on freedom of speech but about creating a policy framework that encourages plurality and diversity and that creates an environment in which individuals are conscious themselves not to voice out gender discrimination.
The process towards gender equality in the media seems to be a slow one, sometimes even frustrating. Do you have any words of hope or views on what the future holds?
Yes, it’s a slow process, but it’s changing. Firstly, we must keep talking about it and keep this topic on the agenda. For example, it is a discussion that should be included in journalism and media schools – I’m always surprised about the number of curricular in media studies that don’t deal with gender issues and stereotypes. Also, to continue collecting data is crucial. One of the things I’ve noticed working in this area for so many years is that we go through cycles where people get tired of talking about it. People might start saying that “we’ve talked about this issue for a long time, and it’s improving so it’s not a problem anymore”, even though gender equality in the media is still not achieved. We need figures that prove how the situation is, so that the discussion does not become a matter of your opinion against mine but a matter of how reality actually is.
Moreover, groups outside the media sector can aid in studying the situation and pace that we are going at. The media system falls within a bigger context and so does gender inequality so there needs to be participation from a broader perspective as well. I myself have worked with producers in analyzing their content output, seeing where gender inequality sneaks in and coming up with good practices to remedy it. The hectic speed at which media works daily very often makes it difficult for those inside of it to stop and reflect about these complex issues so it’s also important to constantly raise consciousness on the implications of gender equality and the ways discrimination can filter into the media. Also, policies on sexism and gender issues should also be implemented in the broader sense of society and we should also strive to educate boys and girls at a very early age on the topic.
Finally, I also find a need for women to get together to discuss gender equality and support one another in taking action. We cannot just sit around and wait for things to change, because then they will not change. We need to act on it.