It seems timely that while I sat in a media training this weekend sponsored by the National Women’s Editorial Forum, a little discussion bubbled up over the blogosphere and elsewhere about the lack of respect granted to women’s voices in the media.
First, there are the recent studies showing that there is a lack of women and minority-owned media (As of 2006, women of all races owned five percent of the 1,400 commercial broadcast television stations in America, while people of color, who make up 33 percent of the national population [and will be more than 50 percent by 2050), owned 3.6 percent. For radio, a study released this month shows that women and minorities own six and 7.7 percent of all broadcast radio stations in the country respectively.).
Then, there is the discussion on Katie Couric, and whether she is getting a fair shake as the first female anchor of network television, or whether she’s unfairly being laid blame to the downfall of evening news while her male counterparts consistently push off "real news" to proritize stories like the current one on Paris Hilton’s jail time.
As a follow-on, Jennifer Pozner is asking whether Mocking Women Journalists is a Prime-time Sport, in her blog about Fox news’ new reality show, Anchorwoman, which will "feature a busty blonde bikini model and former WWE wrestler as an on-air anchor of KYTX Channel 19, a local CBS affiliate in Tyler, Texas."
And, of course, there has been all the serious talk of late about sexual harrassment prevailing on the blogosphere towards women, and all the flack Siu Lang Panoke (a graduate student at American University), took when she wrote that Economic Status Should Not Hinder Higher Education. Sadly, some of the reaction didn’t center so much on the arguments she made, but were attacks against her for being a single mother.
Anyway, you can see where, in the interest of contributing to the part of our mission that is to raise the voices of women and girls, I felt this training–Power Tools for Contemporary Media: Building Women’s Presence in the Commentary Continuum–might be of value.
With fewer than 20 percent of op-eds nationwide written by women, among a number of other stark realities–many of which are referenced above–the National Women’s Editorial Forum "empowers women to engage in, transform and democratize the media landscape and is dedicated to increasing the supply of comentary by women and their participation in the media."
Write on.
The training brought together talented leaders such as the President of NOW in New Jersey, members of Code Pink and leaders of local organizations such as Ohio’s Hard Hatted Women, among many others. We were trained up to improve our skills in writing op-eds, creating radio pieces, being interviewed on television and participating to the fullest extent possible in the blogosphere to raise our own voices, and those of the organizations and causes we work for.
(Yes, we are tired.)
In exchange for motivation and inspiration from the likes of Eleanor Clift, Josephine Reed, Ann Friedman and Laura Rogers, we were asked simply to write, speak and blog–as individuals and as part of organizations working on behalf of women–on issues of note and importance to women.
An important note for everyone–women, nonprofits, philanthropists, and citizens concerned with and working on behalf of women, girls and better communities–to take the personal reactions we have to the news and what we see in the world around us and to put it into words and out there, for the public, to consider, digest, debate and eventually, act on.
Just as Siobhan noted earlier, there is power in making philanthropy public–particularly for women–and a significant piece of this isn’t just to put our money where our mouths are, but to use every mouth piece available to raise our voices.
A scary challenge, but also an important one.
So women, write on.
To learn more, or to submit an op-ed as a female voice, or on women’s issues, through the National Women’s Editorial Forum–or one of the state editorial boards in your state (they’ll help you place it)–learn more here.
