Low female representation
may skew media messages
By Heather Mangold
City
Editor
It is possible that the message Americans have
been receiving from the media about America's war on terrorism has been
skewed due to the lack of female journalists, politicians and experts,
according to some Purdue professors.
Rosalee Clawson, an assistant professor in the
department of political science, has been monitoring news shows on television
such as "Meet the Press" and "Facing the Nation." On these shows, Clawson
said she has noticed that the role of women has been small.
"On 'Meet the Press' for the last month there's
been no women at all," said Clawson. "On some other shows they have
woman reporters and moderators but for the most part, women have been
almost completely absent on these shows, so we're getting a very narrow
perspective on the war with terrorism and the issues we're facing with
anthrax."
Clawson said that even before the events of Sept.
11, women's voices were not heard on what she called "male dominated"
shows. She said the tendency for these shows is to go to experts for
information, which tend to be men.
"This is a combination of stereotyping and just
the reality that in some of the top military positions there's no women,"
said Clawson.
Glenn Sparks, a professor in the School of Liberal
Arts, said it is true that, in fact, women are underrepresented in media.
He added that this is a problem in many professions.
"When you have a highly professional sort of environment,
when you've got doctors and lawyers, that world seems to be dominated
by men," said Sparks. "I would not be surprised that if one did a content
analysis of the experts that were being called upon after Sept. 11,
that we would find women were underrepresented."
Sparks said that it is important to remember that
until extensive documented research takes place, it is not safe to assume
that casual observations truly reflect the number of women that have
been represented in the media since Sept. 11.
Sparks said the real issue at hand is that the
actual proportion of experts that could be interviewed on shows such
as "Meet the Press" and "Face the Nation" may be disproportionately
male.
"It might not be a problem with the journalistic
community, but rather a problem with our society," said Sparks.
Clawson agreed that women's underrepresentation
in the media is a societal problem.
"I wouldn't say that I'm an expert on how we go
forward, but we have to ensure that women's voices aren't shut out of
the process," said Clawson. "As we move forward, we must keep in mind
women's voices and women's rights."
Keeping in mind women's voices is something that
pertains especially to America's war on terrorism, said Clawson.
"In general, women and men tend to have differing
opinions on issues of force and certainly this has to do with the issue
of force," said Clawson. "By keeping women's voices out you may be skewing
the debate so that a full range of options aren't heard."
Clawson said that American women have been focusing
on the oppression of Afghanistan women for years, but now the Bush administration
has introduced the country's treatment of women as a justification for
force.
"Bush has pulled out the oppression of women as
one of the reasons why we should go forward and we should hold him to
that," said Clawson.
When the Taliban came into power, women who had
been teaching school and girls who were attending school were forced
to quit. Women were soon not able to obtain basic healthcare and were
not allowed to go out into public without their coverings, said Clawson.
"This is incredible oppression of controlling women's
activities in basically every part of life," she said. "In Afghanistan
there were women who were teachers and doctors and they were well educated
and all of the sudden they got thrown into a situation where they had
no rights."
Clawson said that so far there clearly has been
no effort to seek out women's voices.
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