Gender Gap Remains Wide in News Media

Seeing how women are treated by the mass media, Betty Friedan wonders whether “a new feminine mystique” is taking hold.

At the second conference on Women, Men and the Media sponsored here by the Gannett Foundation and USC, surveys were released showing women are under-represented--as news subjects and providers of news--and underpaid in the nation’s media. The gender gap prevailed across the board in newspapers, television and radio.

To demonstrate the point at a press conference this week, recent front pages of the New York Times and two other papers were displayed with dozens of blue lines drawn through male bylines and names in stories. There were no women on the front pages in stories, pictures or bylines.

“The fact that 52% of the population does not exist on the front page of newspapers is an annihilation of the woman as a person,” said Friedan, whose book “The Feminine Mystique” raised Americans’ consciousness about women’s objections to the traditional role of the stay-at-home wife and mother.

The media’s treatment of women is “a new form of the feminine mystique, depicting it as possible to go home again,” she said.

Other speakers talked about the distortion of the news that may occur as the result of viewing events through a male prism; several resurrected a statement made by Susan B. Anthony in 1893, “As long as newspapers and magazines are controlled by men . . . women’s ideas and deepest convictions will never get before the public.”

A survey examining the front pages of 10 major newspapers during March found that 27% of the bylined stories were written by women, 24% of the photos showed women (usually with spouses or children) and just 11% of the people mentioned by name in stories were women.

How Three Rated

USA Today had the highest percentage of female bylines and story subjects at 41% and 21% respectively; the New York Times had the lowest with 16% and 5%. The Los Angeles Times was No. 6 at 25% and 8%.

There also was a substantial average salary gap between women and men of equal experience in comparable jobs: a difference of $9,074 a year for television, $7,793 for newspapers and $3,323 for radio.

Shelby Coffey III, editor of the Los Angeles Times and a participant at the conference, said those figures should be a serious concern for the newspaper business as a whole. He did not believe there was a gender-based salary disparity at The Times, based on surveys done by The Times’ personnel department.

In the national surveys released at the conference, women were heavily bunched at the lower end of job scales, holding 6% of the top jobs and 25% of middle management jobs.

Grist for a Lawsuit?

John Seigenthaler, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and editor of The Tennessean, said of the survey results: “That disparity surprises me more than a little bit. It seems to me to be a resource for an EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) appeal. A lawsuit would be enough for most editors to understand that it has to stop.”

Geneva Overholser, editor of the Des Moines Register and a former editor at the New York Times, found the numbers “just stunning. It’s a criminal injustice.”

Particular concern centered on the concept of the “glass ceiling,” the idea that there is an invisible barrier that prevents qualified individuals from advancing beyond a certain level; the surveys confirmed that women are now comparably paid and hired in equal numbers at the entry level, but then fall behind their male colleagues in salary and promotions as the years go on.

“It’s this boys club. They promote their buddies,” said Marlene Sanders, a television broadcaster who has written a book, “Waiting for Prime Time,” about her frustrations in several television jobs. “They don’t want to give up power. Maybe we wouldn’t want to give it up if we had it.”

How to Remedy Problem?

Discussion of what to do focused on women presenting the surveys to editors and pushing for equal treatment.

But Sanders doubted that would be effective. “I don’t think they’re going to budge a minute,” she said. “We ought to be a little more confrontational. Public humiliation should be one of our goals.”

In a keynote luncheon address, columnist and television producer Linda Ellerbee offered some advice.

“You must understand why we are here,” Ellerbee told the 400 participants, many of whom had taken part in the pro-choice march to the Capitol the day before. “It is because of the civil rights movement in the ‘60s and the women’s movement in the late ‘70s. Power is never relinquished willingly.

“I learned two things,” she said. “No. 1, do it your way. No. 2, don’t mellow.”