Why we need feminist journalism
Gender inequality won’t go away on its own
By: Megan Clement, The Gender Beat
This is an edited version of a post published by the Gender Beat’s Impact Newsletter.
There is no country in the world where men and women are equal. This inescapable fact seeps into every public and private life aspect yet is often excluded from busy news agendas. I even forget myself sometimes.
Perhaps it is the universal nature of the consequences of gender inequality — including male violence, attacks on reproductive rights, unequal burdens of care work, pay gaps, and political under-representation — that causes them to be almost entirely overlooked by media organizations.
An analysis by Luba Kassova found that just 0.02% of news coverage globally focuses on inequality between men and women regarding “pay, power, safety, authority, confidence, health, and ageism.” Not even 1% of the coverage is for an issue that affects everyone worldwide. (Because, yes, gender inequality affects men too).
“The perspectives of women and gender-diverse people are systematically excluded from news coverage, with men comprising up to 70% of expert voices cited in news stories”
To make matters worse, the perspectives of women and gender-diverse people are systematically excluded from news coverage, with men comprising up to 70% of expert voices cited in news stories. The perspectives of women of color are even more marginalized because, as Kassova notes, “higher weighting is given to news relevant to white people.”
How is it possible that coverage of gender inequality exists in such microscopically small proportions? Why are more than five women or girls killed every hour by someone in their own family considered much less newsworthy than other forms of conflict or violence?
The answers range from the lack of diversity in newsrooms to the punishing nature of breaking news coverage, unconscious bias, and overt discrimination.
Yet all over the world, every day, journalists are working to tell stories about the experiences of women and gender-diverse people, despite how hard it can be to get those stories onto the front page. And they need more support.
This month, The Gender Beat is releasing a study of more than 100 media workers focusing on gender or feminist topics. In it, these journalists, editors, and supporters share why they cover gender and feminist issues and what they need to thrive.
We found an immense passion for reporting on feminist issues among the respondents. As one journalist told us:
“I believe in educating through journalism and in tackling the world’s problems, denouncing wrongdoings. That cannot be achieved if the attack on women and their rights persists and if they/we are not giving room to speak out.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, since so many feminist and gender journalists are pushing against the tide by doing this reporting at all, we also found very high levels of burnout. Many journalists relied on very little to tell the stories they cared about.
A reporter in India said:
“Freelancing is competitive, and a limited number of publications are interested in commissioning gender stories. They are usually small, have less money, and no field reporting budgets. That means all the expenses come out of my pocket. I am underpaid and overworked. No organization pays therapy bills for gender reporters.”
“We can’t end patriarchal dominance if we don’t know what we are up against”
But we need these reporters more than ever. In times of backlash against women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights — from abortion bans in Poland to attacks on trans rights in the US to Uganda’s “anti-gay bill” — the world needs high-quality reporting on feminist topics. We can’t end patriarchal dominance if we don’t know what we are up against.
We need more newsrooms to invest in journalism about gender inequality because public awareness of a problem is the first step to fixing it, whether it’s access to abortion, the scourge of femicide, or the stubborn gender pay gap.
As one respondent to our survey put it:
“The stories get written, it opens eyes, the change starts happening.”
The Gender Beat is launching their report, The Gender Beat, Gender is Part of Every Story: The Global Landscape of Gender and Feminist Journalism, at a live online event on July 27 at 14:00 Paris time (08:00 NY / 13:00 London / 17:30 New Delhi / 19:00 Bangkok). You can register to attend here. In the meantime, read the report’s key recommendations at this link (PDF).
Megan Clement co-founded The Gender Beat, an organisation that advocates for greater coverage of gender issues around the world. She edits Impact, a bilingual newsletter by Les Glorieuses covering feminist movements and women’s rights worldwide. Her reporting has appeared in The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Sydney Morning Herald, Al Jazeera, The New Humanitarian, and News Deeply.