Volume 38, No. 2, Spring 2010

Newsweek Retrospective on Sex Bias
Lawsuit Sparks Praise, Derision

1970:  Women working for Newsweek sue the magazine for employment discrimination based on gender.

2010:  Women working for Newsweek produce a lengthy article reviewing the case and assessing progress made since then (or lack of it), not only at Newsweek but in the working world in general. Some online comments commend the authors; others jeer them for “whining,” telling them it’s much tougher in other fields than journalism; still others say the balance of power has actually shifted from men to women, so what are the authors complaining about?

The history of the plaintiffs’1970 case against Newsweek is interesting all by itself, but the authors’ (Jessica Bennett, Jesse Ellison and Sarah Ball) broadening of their perspective to include contemporary work force issues is illuminating.

The male-female numbers at Newsweek now are somewhat different from those of the era that saw the sex bias complaint. In 1970, 25% of Newsweek’s editorial masthead was female; now it’s 39%. In 1970, most of the women at the magazine were on the lower rungs of the editorial ladder. They were “researchers” who had to hand over their reporting to male colleagues. Today women’s bylines are featured more prominently. But Bennett, Ellison and Ball note that in 2009, men wrote all but six of Newsweek’s 49 cover stories, and two of those used the headline, “The Thinking Man.”

Bennett and Ellison have started an interesting blog, “The Equality Myth,” to track and comment on developments and research on the subject. Read it at www.equalitymyth.com. To read the original Newsweek piece, and reader comments that praise and criticize the article and the authors, published in the issue dated March 29, visit www.newsweek.com/id/235220/

Study: Conclusive Connection Between
Violent Videos, Aggression

Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson has made much of his life's work studying how violent video game play affects youth behavior. And he says a new study he led, analyzing 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide, proves conclusively that exposure to violent video games makes more aggressive, less caring kids -- regardless of their age, sex or culture.

The study was published in the March 2010 issue of the Psychological Bulletin, an American Psychological Association journal. It reports that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive thoughts and behavior, and decreased empathy and prosocial behavior in youths, including girls and young adults.

Particularly intriguing is what the study says about the effects on females. “The research evidence concerning violent video game effects on children, adolescents, and young adults shows that females are just as affected as males,” Anderson told MRTW. “Girls and young women who play violent videos are more likely to engage in physical aggression than those who don't. This is true in short term experimental studies as well as long-term longitudinal studies. This is true across cultures, and at different ages.”

Further details can be found at http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/03/03/study-proves-conclusively-that-violent-video-game-play-makes-more-aggressive-kids.htm

Daring Women Named IWMF
Courage Award Winners

An investigative journalist from Colombia who has been robbed and kidnapped and who has received threats against her life and that of her daughter; a Tibetan journalist who is one of China’s best known bloggers, even though she is under constant scrutiny from the government, and a Tanzanian journalist whose investigations into a series of murders have put her in danger are winners of the 2010 International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Awards. They are:

Claudia Duque, 39, an investigative journalist and correspondent for Radio Nizkor in Colombia; Tsering Woeser, 43, a Beijing-based Tibetan freelance writer, blogger for the site Invisible Tibet and contributor to Radio Free Asia; and Vicky Ntetema, 51, a freelance Tanzanian reporter who contributes to the BBC World Service. The IWMF also announced that it will present its Lifetime Achievement Award to Alma Guillermoprieto, 60, a Mexican journalist whose articles have illuminated Latin America for her readers.

Global Image Roundup: Recent
Research on Portrayal of Women

MRTW regularly scans research sources for what’s being published that illuminates the relationship between women and media. In each issue, we publish two in-depth research articles on important aspects of the relationship. But we also like to bring to our readers summaries of other research we regard as important. Here are several examples.

India: “Portrayal of Women in Television Serials” by Shashi Kaul and Shradha Sahni, Government College for Women, Kashmir India. Published in the journal Studies in Home and Community Science 4(1): 15-20, 2010. When women’s issues or “a woman’s story” is presented, two archetypes tend to emerge:  either a quite young, professional, beautiful “super woman” or a relatively passive, traditional woman living by the rules set by her man. Differences emerged when the researchers asked how much change should be made:  71.6% of women wanted to see women with multiple roles as opposed to 33.3% of men; 33.3% of women wanted to see “emancipated women” but just 16.6% of men did.

Italy:  A video release in 2009, “The Body of Woman,” takes Italian media to task for its portrayals females. The documentary by Milan business executive Lorella Zanardo and Mark Malfa Chindemi caused a stir when it was screened at the House of Culture in Milan. Through a series of sequences, taken from television broadcasts, the authors Zanardo and Chindemi demonstrate that what is reflected on national television is the exploitation and showing of perfect bodies at all costs, modified by cosmetic surgery in the pursuit of an ideal of perpetual youth, which makes women’s grotesque faces out of time and devoid of any uniqueness. What is also disturbing is the ridicule heaped on models who appear on television game and variety shows – in place mainly for their decorative appearance and then made fun of for it. See it www.ilcorpodelledonne.net/?page_id=89 (subtitled in languages other than Italian, including English).

Research in Depth: Newspaper Coverage of Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election by Jenna Swan

Research in Depth: Coverage of Women Journalists in Columbia Journalism Review by Amber Willard Hinsley

Commentary: Where are the Women? News Sourcing Still Lacks Gender Balance

Plus News Briefs!

Media Report to Women has hard copies of back issues dating to its founding in 1972. Indispensable for research!