The sad truth about women in media on the eve of International Women’s Day
On the eve of International Women’s Day, Isentia’s Claire Waddington fears the gender imbalance of women in media jobs is also locking the voice of women out of stories in everything from business to sport.
A study released yesterday by Women in Media, a national mentoring and networking initiative run by women from across the media spectrum, backed by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and Isentia, has uncovered a startling inequity.
The responses were collected via a national online survey of around 1,000 women in media at the end of 2015, as well as in-depth analysis of media activity in 2015 in Australia.
The overarching theme revealed, frankly: discrimination remains rife in the industry.
As this year’s International Women’s Day campaign #pledgeforparity asks for a worldwide boost for women in the workforce, the study clearly shows the gender imbalance issue in media runs far deeper than newsroom quotas and pay-gaps.
As a member of the industry, I find it more than concerning that the general sentiment of my female colleagues is an industry trend toward ‘mates over merit’.
Sentiment is one thing but the reality is reflected harshly in numbers. Yes, newsroom quotas are far from parity. The pay-gap is still shockingly wide. However, what concerns me the most is gender bias in reporting.
Why, in 2016, is it possible for newsroom ratios to still be 70:30 male-to-female reporters, and the press coverage of sport, finance and politics to still be so male-centric?
Don’t believe me? In analysing the bylines of 9,597 radio, television and press articles, at iSentia we found that more than 70% of finance stories came from male reporters.
It could be fair to suggest that good news reporting is subjective, and that gender should not hinder reporting of factual information. My question is, why then were eight in every 10 spokespeople quoted in these articles male?
It is even more apparent in sport. As role models like Michelle Payne, Stephanie Gilmore and Cathy Freeman have cast much-needed light on Australian women in sport, females accounted for only 7.6% of sources quoted in sports news.
Could it be that the 90% of sports stories filed by males failed to call on females for their opinion?
Again, there is truth in the numbers. Looking broadly at the news, across any category, male reporters were shown to include female spokespeople in their reporting in just 17.4% of cases. When a female reporter was assigned, the percentage of female experts quoted climbed to 31.5%.
Unquestionably, the lack of women in newsrooms is an unfortunate waste of expertise and investment. But gender imbalance in mainstream reporting is an issue that concerns the majority, because it’s the majority that benefit from diversity in opinion.
Overall, progress on equality in the media is disappointingly slow. It’s clear that structural discrimination – and entrenched workplace cultures – keep women in lower paid, less powerful positions.
As an industry, we need to support groups like Women in Media in its quest for audits and action on the entrenched gender pay-gap, which research from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency reveals a 23.3% gap in Information, Media and Telecommunications.
Anti-discrimination policies need to be put not just into place but into practice. Not just for the women in media, but also for the majority of people relying on the 24-hour news cycle for a fair representation of what is happening in the world.
- Claire Waddington is marketing communications director with media intelligence company Isentia.
I am proud to support men and women in my agency who come from diverse backgrounds Our clients appreciate the breadth of ideas and diverse thinking that come from our agency team.
We have put in place salary benchmarking to ensure that all people are paid within the same bandwidth for the same role. Such a simple idea and yet our industry is still experiencing disparity in what is paid to their employees.
We want to create a fair workplace that offers opportunity to every person who works hard and is committed to delivering their best.
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This is another example, there are many of them, of a general whinge by politically motivated women, who insist upon arguing that, first of all true equality is desirable or even possible, and secondly that it is, somehow, best represented by equal numbers.
In almost all other feminist argument, the “equality” statement is a general heading highlighting the supposed lower status of women, with examples of gender equality played down in the cases of “women are better suited than men” “Women rate higher on average than men” or international women’s day etc.
The so called “pay gap” is based upon a false premise, that all men are paid equally for equal work, and women are, somehow, paid less.
What does it matters a fig who delivers the message or what gender the messenger may happen to be? Voices in media are simply not that important, and why should gender make any difference to the news or the weather or the results of a football game, any more than the gender of a driver, a rubbish collector, a nurse or a school teacher should matter?
The women who wish to make a paid job a lifetime occupation should get on with doing it, and those who wish to take time to have a family and/or please themselves about paid work or not as the case may be, should do the same.
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Oh Mr Moss, eloquently spoken like the old white man you are.
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Being a male and having an opinion about any of these gender issues, is rather like playing chess with a pigeon: no matter how smart your moves are, the bird struts around like its won, while crapping all over the board.
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The issue revolves around ‘what is parity’.
Some say 50/50 or thereabouts based on population gender breakdown. If you look at the ABS Labour Force statistics you will see that 45.6% of the labour force is female and 54.4% is male … so around 50/50 could be seen as close to parity.
However, when the debate gets to issues about senior management, CEOs etc, you see a different data set – well if you base it on the assumption that senior managers and the C-suite work full-time (plus some).
That is, management and C-suite are (logically) drawn from the pool of the 70.4% of the labour force that works full time.
However, just 55% of females work full-time whereas 83% of males work full-time. This means that the full-time worker gender balance is 64% male and 36% female.
Would not a two-to-one ratio be closer to the mark than 50-50?
Having said that I don’t believe in setting quotas – hire and promote the best person for the job is the only way to go. But across the work force two-to-one is where it would probably land at simply because of the full-time gender imbalance.
By the way, in the Information, Media and Telecommunications sector full-time employees make up 82.7% of the labour force, and it is split 66% male 34% female – pretty much the same as the labour force in general.
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StatsGuru nailed it. You can’t “have it all”, sadly ladies for reasons given. I’d go with two to one, as long as the best person is driving the bus.
And, I’m happy if that one is female.
Virginia, I think they meant “media” as in owners, not agencies.. There’s a few good ladies running those today.
Alan Robertson
Kinesis Media Pty Ltd.
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@Huh
I thank you for what I am choosing to interpret as a compliment.
If it was not intended as a compliment, then I fear that you have been guilty of patronising, racism, ageism, sexism, and the judgmental stating of the bleeding obvious.
:o)
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Women in media are so lucky to have all the men above mansplain the article to us.
Too bad that they actually failed to address the issued raised.
Reading it without the anti-feminist bias will reveal that women are highly under-represented in sport and finance reporting.
The pay gap is based on equal hours in the same job. It’s not comparing part-timers to full-timers.
I’m sorry blokes, but the patriarchy can’t last forever.
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Can you give some more detail on the definitions you used in your source search for business/finance reports?
Are you, for example, talking about external experts – analysts, etc? Or company spokespeople? Or CEO comment? Or all three?
Trying to get a feel for how much of the 80% plus statistic is reflective of our unconcious (or conscious) bias, and how much is a reflection of that if the industries we cover.
To give an example, if search term is as narrow as CEO comment, I’m surprised the figure of blokes is as low as the 80%+ mark, given how few women are CEOs in, say, listed ASX-200 companies.
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Kate you are 100% correct about the pay gap. Absolutely no argument. If anything the gap is getting worse.
But I was raising the issue of ‘parity’ in relation to the C-Suite and senior management positions but that appears to be an inconvenient truth that is verboten.
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@Kate
This is a page where all are invited to give opinions. You describe it as some medium where [quote] “Women in media are so lucky to have all the men above mansplain the article to us.” [unquote]
“Sexplain” may have been as good a made up word, but I suppose “mansplain” is more direct and sarcastic. I hope you are not suggesting that a woman’s point of view or opinion is mere “womansplain” and not a serious attempt to illuminate a truth which may benefit all.
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I am blown away. @StatsGuru I agree on not having quotas, but you have completely ignored the pay gap travesty in our industry.
And @AlanRoberston, Let’s look at this ‘have it all’ argument. I believe you can have it all as a married woman with children, just not all at the same time. But regardless, those are not my circumstances; I’m not trying to have it all.
I am single and have no children, and focused completely on driving the growth of my career. I have more experience, more skill, more natural talent AND have delivered far greater results for the business by busting my arse over years at about 200% capacity (hours, intensity and pace). I would also be the popular choice among colleagues who count on me, and I deliver. But I most certainly have been disadvantaged by lower salaries than men, and also the ‘mates over merit’ phenomenon. Automatic appointments should’ve been outlawed in the 80’s.
I actually believe you are both fair people who support merit ahead of all else. Just don’t let an article about one research study that grossly generalises womens treatment in our industry cloud your thinking. We really do get f!cked over, like-for-like.
And @RichardMoss, I can’t even. #ostrich
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It is a complex issue, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Like anything there has to be a line drawn in the sand at some point to achieve an outcome, and some people will fall either side of this. From my experience the bias is real, and even extends down to supplier choices and not just in role hires.
I think @RichardMoss has a good intention of supporting equality and always provides a great argument, but the issue is that it isn’t the way it is in the main in business yet. Something needs to be done – just what form it takes is the tricky bit.
I’m not sure I agree with a quota either as you’d hope that the best person just wins the job but when people are prejudiced they think they are choosing the best option or the best person and can’t see the other candidates because of their misguided beliefs. A quota can force their hand until such time as it becomes commonplace, so it may have to be.
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@ Holly. So @StatsGuru … “but you have completely ignored the pay gap travesty in our industry”.
Except for … “Kate you are 100% correct about the pay gap. Absolutely no argument. If anything the gap is getting worse.”
Apart from agreeing 100%, saying no argument, and even positing that the gap is getting worse … what part have I ignored?
Maybe I am fortunate that in my business career, maximum annual salary package was defined (and adhered to) based on the job role irrespective of whether the employee was male or a female. Performance was assessed an an ongoing basis and ending with an annual performance review which determined both (a) the proportion of the maximum salary the employee would be paid and (b) what annual bonus would be paid against stretch targets. All measures were quantified and measured. Never was gender one of the measures. So please tell me what was wrong with such a system (by the way, it was called a ‘parity’ system’.
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@StatsGuru – my comment was to your first post, not the follow up. Apologies if that wasn’t clear.
Your business career sounds more inline with what I know about government systems; plenty of transparency! Unfortunately my experience of media is that there is no transparency at all. Aside from the guesstimates we see published annually around individual Executive salaries (which are wildly inaccurate if you listen to some reports), no one has any idea what they are being bench-marked against. I fear it’s “Let’s get her for the cheapest we can.”
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Thanks Holly. And no I have never worked in a government department – private enterprise research and media.
My first post was specifically about ‘parity’ and what parity should be as LOTS has been said and made of that – e.g. the Leo’s uproar but hardly anyone has dared to address the issue. Words like ‘discrimination’ are thrown around when a neutral and simplistic 50/50 balance would be discrimination. As anyone in business knows you need to FIRST set (fair) targets and then measure against them.
I was positing that around a two-to-one M/F ratio in C-suite jobs is probably ‘fair’ given the talent pool to draw from is roughly that composition.
Regarding salary levels I would suggest a one-to-one ratio is probably fair. Again this could be simplistic at an individual’s level for the same job role (e.g. qualifications, years experience etc. could come into it) but over the population it should be 50-50. It is a travesty that it is not.
I could also cheekily suggest that a good research statistician (remember ‘bias’ in any sample or research process is our sworn enemy!) given the data sets could go a long way to establishing role and salary parity level guidelines.
I would be interested in your thoughts.
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