why media matters for women

[niyad]

Why Media Matters for Women
From Content to Production to Policy, Media is a Feminist Issue in Election Years and Beyond

by Jennifer L. Pozner

Ask a feminist to identify the most important issues facing women this election year, and she might mention reproductive freedom, violence against women and children, the disproportionate burdens women bear in light of the growing gap between rich and poor in America, or the many ways in which war specifically impacts women. Chances are she wouldn’t immediately point to the media. But she should.

Without accurate, non-biased, diverse news coverage and challenging, creative cultural expression it is virtually impossible to significantly impact public opinion of women’s and human rights issues or to create lasting social change. Indeed, corporate media are key to why our fast-moving culture is so slow to change, stereotypes are so stubborn, and the power structure so entrenched. Pop culture images help us determine what to buy, what to wear, whom to date, how we feel about our bodies, how we see ourselves and how we relate to racial, sexual, socio-economic and religious “others.” Journalism directly links and affects every individual issue on the socio-political continuum in a national debate over the pressing matters of the day, from rape to racism, hate crimes to war crimes, corporate welfare to workplace gender discrimination. By determining who has a voice in this debate and who is silenced, which issues are discussed and how they’re framed, media have the power to maintain the status quo or challenge the dominant order.

And how have media used this power where women are concerned? With a vengeance.

Let’s start with female politicians. Ever wonder why American women are still stuck with only token representation in the House, the Senate and the Supreme Courtor why the closest a woman has come to the Oval Office was Geena Davis on a short-lived ABC drama? In part, it’s because women audacious enough to seek political office are routinely dogged by double-standard-laced news coverage that focuses on their looks, fashion sense, familial relationships and other feminizing details that have nothing to do with their ability to lead. From the recent headlines speculating about whether or not New York Senator Hillary Clinton “had millions of dollars or work done” to make her look less “hideous” to the New York Times likening Representative Nancy Pelosi poised to become the first female Speaker of the House if the Democrats unseat the Republicans to a nagging grandmother, this sort of coverage implies that women should be taken less seriously and are less electable than their male counterparts. Even the most powerful women in America suffer this media indignity: when Condoleezza Rice wore black leather boots last year, the Washington Post described the Secretary of State as a “dominatrix”; on the day she was chosen as America’s first African-American female national security adviser, a front page New York Times story reported that "her dress size is between a 6 and an 8," and she has “a girlish laugh” and "can be utterly captivating -- without ever appearing confessional or vulnerable."

Media content matters, and not just to women at the highest echelons of power. In fact, the more vulnerable women are, the more hostile media coverage becomes. Young, low-income mothers of color have been derided for decades as “promiscuous,” “lazy moochers” and “brood mares” supposedly popping out babies for welfare checks by a bigoted and misogynistic pressa Newsweek editor once even insisted that “every threat to the fabric of this countryfrom poverty to crime to homelessnessis connected to out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy.” The end result of this scapegoating? Punitive welfare reform that decimated the social safety net for poor women and children




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http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1103-30.htm